Too Hurt To Forgive?
Forgiving someone who has wronged us can seem very hard if not next to impossible. For some of us, depending on the severity of what was done to us, it can take weeks, months or sometimes years to even think about forgiving the individual in question never mind actually forgiving them.
It is incredibly easy to dwell on the wrong they have done and the anger we feel. Sometimes it feels strangely satisfying to become enraged again, to feel that surge of righteous indignation all over again. Especially if we think we are in danger of forgetting the incident, because somehow holding on to the pain, hurt and the anger keeps it fresh in our minds and we don’t really want to let it go.
Let it go, (I can hear the wheels turning in your head, did you actually read what you think you did?) Yes you did. Let it go.
Letting go doesn’t mean that the pain is going to go way or that you and I will miraculously forget what happened. It doesn’t mean that the person is off the hook or that you or I are allowing ourselves to be doormats. It doesn’t even mean that the relationship you had with the person will be restored to what it was before or get better. It does mean that we are taking the decision to let go of something thing that is causing us pain and controlling us so that we can move on with our lives.
This helps on several levels, Brian Tracy once said “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you”.
There will always be people that hurt us, as long as we are alive, and while we don’t have any control over their actions we certainly have control over ours. Holding on to grudges and former hurts can make us sick and can ruin our relationships with others who have nothing to do with our past. It can prevent us from enjoying life completely and reaching our God given potential. It can also prevent us from reaching out to others who could benefit from our friendship, concern and kindness.
We cannot achieve this on our own, this is something we have to ask God to help us with, and sometimes the prayer should not only be “God please help me to forgive this person” but also “God, please give me the desire or willingness to want to forgive this person”, because lets face it sometimes we really don’t want to, even though we know we should. The Lord’s prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13 has a beautiful section in it:
“and forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us” (Matthew 6:12 NLT)
So many times we do things, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unintentionally that hurt God and those around us. Many times we ask God to forgive us. But how we can ask God to forgive us when we can’t even forgive people who we can see and speak to face to face. That’s something to ponder about.
Is there someone you need to forgive? A friend, a co-worker, a relative, your child, an ex, your current partner? The list is endless with possibilities. If the answer is yes..then maybe its time to enlist God’s help, hand over your hurt and pain to him and trust him to bring you through it. You may think it is impossible, or think that what the person did to you is unforgivable but trust God, you are not doing it for the other person, you are doing it for yourself and plus, more importantly, you are doing it because that is what God would want you to do.
“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Colossians 3:13 (NLT)