Forgiveness

 

Rarely is this voice heard or if heard respected. Forgiveness is a gift to yourself, to the injuring party and to the world. In this Easter Season there have been many moments I found joy, lightness and openness and many times I have felt loss, aloneness and pain. That is the process leading to forgiveness. Sometimes there are patterns that repeat itself in relationships and you have to stop the pattern. And sometimes stopping that pattern requires saying true things that change the other's perspective and the way they choose to move forward or not. When this pattern for you finally ends, you may feel relief.  

But a choice follows.

You can choose to blame yourself, the other person or God or life circumstances, your parents or all or part or a myriad of other options or you can just choose to forgive everyone you blamed.

There is a freedom in forgiving yourself, the other person and your false concept of God (or whomever else you blamed). It lifts the cloud and makes you light. It allows you to face the music and let others handle things their own way. It allows you to let go and move on. What follows is that you open to new experiences,  new people, and to God in a different way. You open to whatever comes or does not come your way. It frees you to see that sometimes you don't see and so you forgive that too,

Forgiveness takes many forms. The past is one..the present is another and the future requires another. Sometimes you will fail in the moment but the goal remains the same. Don't forget to forgive yourself too.

For me and God..I think I took the signs as an answer. Perhaps the answer was to open up and keep walking through problems over and over again because I kept seeing signs and progress. I have to believe the purpose is growth now. Many beautiful gifts come from a failed relationship. But I have to be honest and say..in hindsight I would have stopped walking through the problems a long long time ago. On the other hand, I learned to the very end something very valuable had I not walked through the problems until I could no more. In any case God uses every choice the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly for His grand purpose. And I am grateful I don't get to know or judge.

If it took this experience to learn the beauty, the power and the healing effect of forgiveness then it was well worth it.  It's a muscle I will have to use over and over for myself and others. I hope to give God the reins fully one day..it seems to work for a lot of people but that process for me now still requires  discernement, pondering and the free will choice to continue down this path of faith.

One day I will look back and say this major shift led to this wonderful new path and the timing was right and it never would have been if this other thing did not happen or end when it did or the way it did. 

Forgiveness is what drew me back to faith. The famous passage while Jesus was hanging on the cross, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."  That touched me in a way nothing else did when I came to know the purpose of life. Give that voice/whisper a chance.  Forgiveness is one of the more beautiful gifts God has taught us about and it works.