Let's Forgive

There are people in my life who have build me up. However, I also have a number of people who would do anything they could to break me down. In my heart, I know that it is really Satan working in my life playing on my fears, and my vulnerabilities. We all have people that we like and people who we don't like, just like we have people that like us and people who don't like us. It's a part of the life that we live while we are on this earth in a world of sinners, including ourselves.

I personally have tendency to hold a lot of bitterness inside myself. I don't trust many people, because they haven't given me a reason to trust them. I bottle things up and just when I think I have pushed something away, it pops right back up. My way of taking care of my bitterness is to push it aside and try to ignore it. I don't like people to see my bitterness but I have been told that I do not have a poker face, therefore almost everyone can see what I am thinking.

There was a time in my life where a group of adults hurt me. Not only emotionally but spiritually. I went through a time where all I did was ask God why that was happening to me. I had been a believer at that point and had been for years, but I was still learning. I couldn't see that it was Satan slipping in where he didn't belong and destroying things. To this day, I still struggle with those memories because they did change my life forever. When we go through something, whether its good or bad, it changes our lives.

The people that hurt me during that time have moved on with their lives but even talking about it makes me angry all over again. I cannot get my head around the fact that they were all able to move on while I am still stuck in the past, bitter, hurt and angry. These feelings come and go, but when they come I am ready to fight and stand up for myself because that's not something I could do when the incident happened.

In talking with my mom, she helped me realize that the problem isn't the fact that no one ever apologized to me, the problem is that I never brought myself to forgive them. A person that hurt me all those years ago has re-entered my life. I have been very negative about it, but that's a real problem because I cannot continue to hold that person responsible for what an entire group did, nor can I continue to hold it against this person when they have moved on.

I am saying all of this because forgiving someone after I have built up such resentment and bitterness, is not something that I can do over night. However, its not something that I can put off any longer. If God held everything I have ever said or done against me, my life would be terribly miserable. We were all forgiven at one time or another so its time that I do the same. If there is something in your life that you have been holding a grudge against, or someone you have never forgiven, pray with me this week and no matter how long it takes, we cannot give up until we give it over to God and forgive, just as we are forgiven.