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!