Forgiveness is something that people love to talk about today, about how it is the only way a person will heal and how not forgiving can even make a person physically sick. It can be a hard thing to do when we have been truly wronged, and I have often wondered why. Are human beings just bent on carrying around anger about things that happened long ago? I have decided that forgiveness is key to living with any sense of well-being and certainly peace, and that the hard part is not in forgiving the person who has hurt us, but in forgiving ourselves. There is something about allowing ourselves to get into a situation where we can be hurt that is humiliating and that humiliation makes the hurt hang on like a bur in a wool sock. It’s that question of “why didn’t I see it coming” or “why did I give them the upper hand” that presses in on us and quenches our ability to shrug it off. So forgiving ourselves for being vulnerable and letting our defenses down becomes the nemesis, and when dealing with a nemesis, there is only one way to go. God is a master at melting the impossible steel cage we put ourselves in when our hearts are hurting. I stop and listen for that voice that urges me to laugh a little at my foibles and believe that my vulnerability is one of the threads woven into me by a God who treasures me.
No comments:
Post a Comment