Forgiveness

This morning I could not sleep so I goggled Christian movies and I watched one called Amish Grace based on true story. It was about an Amish community who  their milk man a non-Amish shot and killed 6 girls in their school because he was angry at God. The community leaders went to the man's house that very day their daughters were killed to give their condolences to his widow and to tell her how they had forgiven her husband for what he had done. I thought that was very surprising. I learnt a lot from the movie. One father said that hate was hungry monster that was never satisfied that if you harboured it in your heart it would eat the love in you heart. He also said that hate hurt, so by hating one was not doing themselves a favour.

I really learned a lot from the movie, personally I have struggled forgiving a lot of people for various things. Forgiveness comes for an open heart, as people we don't have it in ourselves to forgive, God enables us to forgive. By surrendering our pain and hurt to God and asking Him to help us to forgive we are able to have peace in our heats. For a few years I have lived in anger , hate and  unforgiving because of people close to me who hurt and betrayed me. God says vengeance is mine. For awhile now I lived with heavy heart because of  anger and hate would surge in my heart every time I saw these people.

Watching this movie made me realise that all I was doing was hurting myself more. Had I forgiven the people in question those many years ago I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and pain. Forgiveness is not easy and its not cowardice. It is healing and self preservation. Most us do not grieve because we never go past the anger stage in the grieve cycle. So we never get to the stage of acceptance that would help us move on. Forgiving its a process sometimes in a day one has to forgive the same person many times for that one hurtful thing done to us. Forgiveness is conscious effort, letting go and acknowledging the hurt and working towards healing.

This post is dedicated to people like me who have been hurt, betrayed and other bad things that have happened to you that are causing you pain because you have not forgiven people or even yourself. Take time to acknowledge the hurt and make a conscious decision to release the hurt and pain from your heart. Then your will feel the burden lift of your heart. we have so many burdens that we carry in our hearts. Do not let  unforgiving clouds your heart.

Forgiveness is not pardon it does not mean that by forgive you are making the wrong done to you right, but you are forgiving the person the trespass they have committed against you  are removing the hate and angry so you can work on healing and dealing with your own pain. By not forgiving we are adding on to our pain. Do your heart a favour forgive. After I released the prisoners that were in my heart I feel free, now I have peace when I see them I don't cringe, interestingly enough I can pray for them. I am free and my heart is much lighter.