I Forgive Me?

I've been staring at this blank page for a few weeks now.  I'm not there yet.  Forgiving myself has proved to be more difficult than I thought. That would mean I need to stop beating myself up for the things I've done.  I need to stop letting the devil shame me.  What does that even look like?  It's truly going to be a God thing, a place where my relationship with Him means more than anything else.  Dying to myself and trusting Him completely.  I'm not there yet.  How do you let go of everything?  To not be in control?  I'm a woman for goodness sake, is that even possible??  I know it's possible, I've seen it in other people (even women, Godly women).  The idea of it does not sit well with me, I have control issues.  I don't need to control other people - just my own stuff.  We all know it's impossible to do that, there are so many things that are out of our control.  Yet, He wants us to trust Him with all of it, even the stuff we've "got".  "I've got this."  How often do we think or say that?

So, I'm still here.  Not necessarily stuck, just not ready to forgive myself. Don't get me wrong, I want the freedom that comes with that forgiveness - I just don't want to let go and let "Jesus take the wheel" yet. There is more work to do.  I thought I'd share some verses that are standing out to me lately, and maybe you have some wisdom to share on this subject or a favorite verse or a verse you think I need to read.  Please feel free to share.

                                                  Don't be afraid, for I am with you.

                                                       Don't be discouraged, for I am your God.

                                                  I will strengthen you and help you.

                                                       I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

                                                                                    Isaiah 41:10

6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.  7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me - everything you heard from me and saw me doing.  Then the God of peace will be with you.

                                                                                     Philippians 4:6-9

For the Lord your God is living among you.  He is a mighty savior.  He will delight in you with gladness.  With his love, he will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.                                                                                              Zephaniah 3:17

                    

4 Words: Will You Forgive Me?

While I've been working through forgiveness, I've learned that I can't possibly not deal with the issue of asking for forgiveness.  Asking for forgiveness is hard.  It should go hand in hand with the "I'm sorry" you gave the person, but it doesn't always happen that way, does it?  Saying these 4 words, asking this simple little question, this is going the extra mile.  These are powerful and humbling words.  These words have the ability to relieve the pressure on the over-inflated anger balloon.  When you actually say, "Will you forgive me?" after you say, "I'm sorry", you let the person you hurt know that you care, that you want to reconcile, that your relationship with them is important and you want to make it better.  This is the icing on the cake!

Yes it's messy, but so worth it!

While working through the process of forgiving others, I've been praying for God to reveal to me anyone that I need to ask for forgiveness.  That is not a fun prayer.  Honestly, I was a little anxious about this prayer because you never know what God is going to bring to the forefront of your memory.  God hasn't revealed a lot of stuff to me on this one, but the few He has are not easy.  I'm still praying that prayer, I want to stay current.  As a matter of fact, as I'm writing, God has revealed two people to me that I need to have a conversation with.  Yay!  The good part is that most of these people are still in my life, the damage I did was not enough for them to write me off.  There is, however, one person who is not in my life anymore.  I have tried to contact this person but they do not respond.  I will try again.

The last part of asking forgiveness is making it right.  What do I need to do to make this relationship work and make sure this doesn't happen again?  This is important, especially if you want the person in your life and you don't want to hurt them in this way anymore.  There are plenty of opportunities to hurt people in other ways, and we will do it, we are human and not perfect - no matter what we think!  A good way to do this is to have a conversation or two, or twenty, whatever it takes - right?

So, there are 3 steps to take to forgiveness:

In conclusion I'd like to say, you don't have to ask for forgiveness.  You can say "I'm sorry" and be done, but I suggest you give this a try.  Asking someone to forgive you is hard but when they look at you and say, "Already done", you will never forget that feeling!

Have a blessed day!

        

To Forgive Others

Forgive:  V.  Stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw or mistake.

Forgive.  It's a verb: it implies action.  Have you ever had to ask forgiveness for something really awful?  Have you ever had to forgive someone for something really awful?  Have you ever had to forgive yourself for awful things you've done or said?  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.

Forgiveness is something I am just learning to do.  I've known about forgiveness but not what it means.  It's supposed to make you feel better, give you peace, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I've been going to church for more than 20 years, I've heard plenty of sermons on forgiveness - probably even participated in Bible studies on forgiveness.  Do I know what it means?  I'm learning.  I was never taught about this growing up, I've always thought I just need to get over it.  I would get hurt, get angry, stuff it down and get over it.  Ha!  No such luck, buddy.  Not to mention the people I've hurt in my angry, stuffing, getting over it mode.  Have I asked forgiveness?  Maybe once or twice, I honestly don't remember.  Terrible.  Yes, I'm very disappointed in myself - for sure, but I'm working on that also.

Forgiveness is a process.  I read this great book by David Stoop, PhD called Forgiving the Unforgivable.  When I started reading the very first chapter, all these names kept popping into my head and I realized that these are the people I need to forgive, including myself.  So, I wrote down all of those names, including a couple that I didn't even want to think about, much less see their names written on a piece of paper. (yes, I have issues)  As I went through the list and remembered those names, I continued reading.  As I progressed through the book, I realized I had already worked through a good bit of the forgiveness process and in quite a few cases, was ready to actually forgive the person.

The forgiveness  process starts with placing blame appropriately.  Don't deny or blame myself, shut down emotionally, obsess, accuse or excuse, isolate and withdraw or seek revenge.  Okay, I did all of these (with the exception of revenge - not that I didn't plan it in my head, but I never acted on it).  Now I'm paying it forward - don't do these things, they are bad.  They lead to bitterness, loneliness and depression.  Place blame appropriately. I was hurt, I got angry and sad and I stuffed it deep down inside and tried to act like nothing happened.  I did this for years.  I have health issues that will probably never go away because of this including acid reflux, dermatitis, fatigue, and I've been emotionally shut down most of my adult life.  I've had to document and learn emotions just so I know what I'm feeling. So, let's teach our children how to forgive.

Next we move on to grieving.  Yup, it's a very important step.  Grieve what was lost.  First I needed to deal with the anger.  Anger at the offender. I have plenty of anger from all that stuffing I've done, I just had to place the appropriate anger with the corresponding hurt.  Get out your note cards if you need to, write it down, whatever it takes.  Once I got some of that anger properly allocated, sadness came along.  Sadness about what I've lost, what was done to me.  Get out the tissues people, you're gonna need them.  It's important for me to work through these steps so that I can feel these emotions and figure out what is making me angry and sad, and forgive when I need to

Last, but not least, forgive.  Don't allow yourself to hold this hurt against that person anymore.  Easier said than done, I know.  Take it one day at a time, I'm thinking it will get easier.  It's tough when the people are still in your life and still hurt you occasionally.  One verse that's helping me is:
   
      Luke 23:34:  Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."

 Sometimes people have no clue how hurtful they're being.  Maybe they were raised that way and never saw a need to work on themselves, maybe that's all they know.  That is sad.  That was me.  Keyword:  was.  When I started following Jesus, I saw a need to change my mean ways.  I might've gotten a bit nicer but I was still stuffing all that anger down, still hurting myself and the ones I love by not dealing with it, by not forgiving my offenders, by not asking forgiveness when necessary and not being emotionally present.

I have already forgiven some of the people on my list in my heart but I want to take this final step.  I want to write them a letter (no, I'm not sending it), read it out loud, then burn it.  I want to put a stake in the ground and not let myself go back to anger and bitterness.  I want to be able to love them freely without all this junk between us.

I know that I've written a few little paragraphs about a lifetime of hurt, but this stuff takes time.  I've been working on this for a few years and there are a few people that I'm still not ready to forgive.  It's okay, I'll get there soon, I can feel it.  I've tasted that freedom, and it is good.  If you need to forgive someone and have been holding on to anger and sadness, maybe it's time to forgive them.  If you're not sure, have someone you love and trust by your side to tell you it's time to forgive.  Don't let your grieving turn to bitterness or depression.  Forgive.  It feels pretty good.

The Opposite of Love

When I started this blog I was going to write about gardening.  Lately I've been doing a different type of gardening and growing.  I've been pulling weeds from my life garden.  Some of them have roots so deep I feel like I need a jackhammer to get them out.  If I'm being totally honest here, most of them have very deep roots.  Have you ever tried to pull a dandelion out of the ground?  It's ridiculous how quickly they dig down into your yard or garden and don't want to leave.  Well, I've let some bad habits grow in my life for way too long and it has been a tough journey (still a work in progress) uprooting these weeds.  You have to completely eliminate the roots and that doesn't guarantee they haven't gone to seed in other areas.  It's very important to be thorough.

Root from a weed tree growing in the garden, this is not my heart!

Last week while Phil and I were having coffee, he was talking about a radio program he was listening to and the lady said, "the opposite of love is selfishness".  What?!?!  Yup.  We can not love the way Jesus wants us to love when selfishness is present.  Boom!  Right there in the Good Book. 

                                 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said
                                  "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn
                                  from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow 
                                  me."  ~Jesus                                            Mark 8:34
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Turn from your selfish ways: Take up your cross, Follow the Lord!

So, the first weed I am trying to eliminate is selfishness.  Easy, right?  Not quite.  Not when you've lead a selfish life.  The unfortunate thing is that the person who was on the receiving end of most of my selfishness is Phil.  The fortunate thing is that people can change, and they do, and I am.  This process requires total dependence on God.  I can not do this without Him.  Big G.  Dying to self daily, turning to Him always, praying and thanking Him often, turning from my selfish ways.  Not an easy or painless task.  It's hard work, but so worth it. The best part is Phil loves me and I love him and we're in this together, till death do us part.  

The second weed I am trying to eliminate in my life is fear.  Yup, another big one.   God's been talking to me through a lot of people and radio shows, music and sermons about this one.  Fear is big and the less we talk about our fears the bigger they get.  I've learned that talking about my fears deflates the power they have over me. It's like popping a balloon and letting all the air out.  Most of the time there is no reason for my fear, only the evil one trying to keep me hiding.  The devil has done a pretty good job keeping me in hiding.  I've isolated myself from friends and family and it's tough trying to get back in, but I'm working on that too.  I'm learning to face fears, some head on and some from behind.  I fail often but the successes are encouraging and freeing.

                                   

                                   "There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out

                                     fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one  

                                     who fears is not made perfect in love."    1 John 4:18

                                    But when I am afraid,
                                         I will put my trust in you.                     Psalm 56:3

One thing I know is that I couldn't do this without the help of my counselor. She is helping me to speak up more (about fears) and think better, especially of myself.  She is a fantastic woman who is compassionate, intelligent and empathetic, and she knows where to challenge me.  I highly recommend a counselor when digging deep into the dirt of your life.

Talk:  about your fears!

So, here's the wrap up:

     Turn -  from selfish ways!
          Talk - about fears!
               Trust God!