|
The hardest thing that I’ve personally had to deal with is forgiving myself. It’s the hardest thing that anyone could ask me to do. I have the memories of all the bad things I’ve done in my life and I know how they have affected others. I know how deeply I’ve hurt others and because of the pain I’ve caused others, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I’m a sinner and I can’t deny it. I can’t pretend to be perfect or act as if nothing is wrong. When I cause pain to others I have no place to go to hide me from myself. I have to live that life of remembering and never forgetting. I believe that we find it pretty easy to forgive others for what they do to us personally. We may never forget but we forgive them. So what do we do? How do we learn to forgive ourselves?
To forgive someone sometimes takes a huge step for us to make. We can’t always do it right away; sometimes it takes time to forgive people. I’d say most of the time, all it takes is time. As the ones doing the forgiving we control the time frame in which forgiveness happens. One of my favorite stories of forgiveness and the lack of forgiveness is found in Luke 15, the parable of the lost son. In this story the younger son of two leaves and squanders his half of his inheritance away in a distant land. Meanwhile the older son and father continue to live their life at home working hard on the land doing what has to be done. After the younger son hits rock bottom he realizes that his father’s cattle is eating better than he is, so he heads home. At a very far distance the father sees his younger son and orders his finest clothing to clothe his son. He also orders a fattened calf to be prepared because his son had returned. The older son seeing all of this takes place gets angry because he gets nothing and he is the one who stayed behind to continue to do his job. This parable is a great parable for how God welcomes us home with open arms and celebrations when we slip and fall away, but I believe there are other lessons to learn. The father in the parable instantly forgave his son, whereas the brother held a grudge and wasn’t as forgiving. In Mat 6:14-15 it tells us, “14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” By listening to the word that God has given us, helps us and provides us with the insight and strength for us to forgive others. That is the first step in forgiving yourself.
The next step is something that we can’t control. The next step is having others forgive us for the pain we’ve caused them. Now in most cases this isn’t that bad. Once you give a person some time to heal for the hurt and pain you’ve caused them, then there is a possibility for them to forgive you and you both move on. We can only hope that the person you’ve hurt reads 2 Cor 2:5-8. In verse 7-8 we are told, “Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.” The wonderful thing about life is typically if you hurt someone, time will eventually heal the wound. Sometimes it isn’t as soon as we would like. For instance, my oldest son believes that right after he says that he is sorry that you should forgive him immediately. Now our Father will forgive us immediately if we ask it in earnest and we mean it. However as people on this earth it’s not so easy for us to do so immediately. A great example of someone forgiving almost immediately was in the news a couple of years ago. A man in a rural part of the state he lived in, did a horrible thing. He took the lives of innocent women and young ladies as they were taking part in classes. Now the community he lived in had an Amish population and the school where he did the horrible things he did was completely Amish. Now when the man was done doing the horrible things he was doing he took his own life. So you’d assume that this community would shun this mans spouse or any of his family. In an act that you would never expect of anyone, one of the elders spoke up from the Amish community and not only told the mans wife that they forgave him, but let the whole world know. This forgiveness just doesn’t happen very often. It just proves that forgiveness can come quick from even the ones you hurt the most.
What I would consider the hardest thing for any of us to do is to forgive ourselves. We live with the memories and the pain we’ve caused others, so most of us will continue to punish ourselves with the past. So how do we punish ourselves? Well one way that I know personally is that we will rehearse what we’ve done over and over in our head. Its called beating yourself up, replaying it enough times trying to think of how many ways you could have done things differently. In forgiving ourselves we must realize that we are human and that we aren’t perfect. There was only one perfect person on this earth and that feat will not be repeated. Next it’s important that we realize as well that Christ forgives us immediately after we ask for true forgiveness. Now with true forgiveness you may not understand what I’m saying. True forgiveness is when a person asks for it and actually means to change their life. In other words, don’t ask for forgiveness for something you just plan on repeating again on purpose knowing that it’s not the right thing to do. Now the ones we hurt in the process of living our lives will eventually forgive us, and it’s important that we come to terms with that. The timing of this forgiveness may not be in the time frame we wish it to be, but it will occur. Living in the past will only bring a person down, so we have to remember to move onward in life. Focusing on the future and the changes we can make by the mistakes we’ve made will make us all better people. If we don’t forgive ourselves for the hurt and pain we’ve caused, we will never be able to move on in our own lives.
So asking for forgiveness is easy, receiving forgiveness is a bit tougher, and allowing our own forgiveness is the toughest thing for us to do. We have to move on past the mistakes we’ve made and improve on them. The quickest way for us to forgive ourselves is to not repeat the mistakes we’ve made, to listen to those who we’ve hurt, and to turn our focus away from the mistake. It’s also very important that we spend time in the word and talking to God about the mistakes we’ve made. Forgiveness isn’t easy no matter who is doing the forgiving. However we are all made in the likeness of God whom forgives us instantly for our mistakes. So as you struggle with your sins and the mistakes you’ve made, remember that God forgives you for the mistakes you make. So focus on correcting the mistakes you’ve made and move forward in your life. Forgiving yourself isn’t impossible; just remember to focus on the positive things in your life so you can move on.
|
