hello people that read my blogs, something the Lord’s put on my heart since being on the race is forgiveness.
Woohoo yes we love forgiveness.
Us as human beings go through many different things in our life that all comes down to forgiveness. There’s words, situations, people, etc that are easy to hold close to our heart, never letting go. There’s things I’ve done to people and things people have done to me that are deemed as “unforgivable” in this world. But something I’ve learned is that it’s a command from the Lord. Forgiveness was created for many reasons, one being extending mercy to others. For the past few days, my past has been brought up through certain situations while being in this community. These situations seemed small at first but it created a huge sense of bitterness in me, something that was discouraging to my very existence here. I quickly noticed it really had nothing to do with the people here, but certain things that are deeply rooted in my past.
Im just going to lay a few of them out there-
I have a serious case of comparison, deeply rooted in my past.
I have an overwhelming feeling of unworthiness, deeply rooted in my past.
I have a sense of never being good enough, deeply rooted in my past.
I have a fear of being abandoned/left behind, deeply rooted in my past.
I have a fear of intimacy, deeply rooted in my past.
Something to be noted in forgiveness is your past. For whatever reason the Lord put this whole thing on my heart but I think anyone who is a believer (or even non-believer), forgiveness is vital to living and being. There’s so many things in my past that I’ve held onto or things I didn’t even know were still there, that have created bitterness in me. I’ve learned that there’s choices I have in this. I can either let this bitterness grow, or I can choose to forgive-I can choose to love.
Disclaimer-this isn’t meant to be a romantic view of being a believer because it’s incredibly hard to forgive sometimes AND it’s hard to revisit certain things in your past that were covered in sorrow/pain. Especially if you are stubborn at times, like myself. Forgiveness and healing of your past looks different for everyone, all in God’s timing.
Something I can’t control that I’ve been trying to is how other people react to me or how they treat me. In the past I allowed people to tell me who I was, trying to live up to their expectations. (It sucks don’t do it.) It was exhausting and ended up causing me a lot of pain and disappointment. My past has a balance of things I did and things people did to me. For a while I saw myself as a victim, sitting in my crap, never wanting to forgive those that wronged me because I thought it would somehow change things for me.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t!
With all of this being said, the Lord will bring up things that you never knew needed healing. With this, came a lot of spiritual warfare and confusion on things I’ve already worked out in my life. In the midst of it all, I had started to forget things that were true. I started to feel unworthy, small, and not good enough- because of things rooted in my past. But I’m starting to see it differently now-thanks to Him.
My past is something I cannot change, there’s things right now I cannot change, but he gives you a choice. A choice that involves forgiving- which is a form of loving others. Extending God’s mercy through forgiveness-incredibly hard at times but liberating. Holding things close to my heart that just don’t belong there anymore-it’s harmful to myself and to others. The Lord’s forgiven me for an immense amount of things, why can’t I forgive those around me? Forgive the people in my past?
Proverbs 10:12 “Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all sins.”
This verse is simple but speaks volumes, it’s something that speaks to me in many different ways. We’ve all got things that are so hard to let go of because it caused so much pain to us, feeling as if we need to keep it to somehow change things for us-but it doesn’t. Of course there’s things we will never forget, there’s things He won’t let us forget, but it’s for good reason.
For myself specifically, there’s things I hold onto, deep in my mind that’s actually been getting in the way of me loving others-me spreading his Kingdom. I cannot expect to go on, glorifying him, if I’m putting my past & “unforgivable” things in front of him. All that he’s teaching me, I’m not going to lie it’s pretty hard. I’ve had big and small moments in my past that have shaped me to be the person I am today-but he has made me come out stronger because of them. Because I’ve decided to forgive, to love, and to extend his mercy. I’m not perfect at it and I don’t think anyone will ever be but it’s creating a new spirit for me-something I think is highly important if I want to show others what love is-who He is. The past few days have been full of uncomfortableness, healing, processing and wanting to get all my anger out in throwing rocks (yes throwing rocks) but it’s been worth it-growing closer to him and choosing love-having it cover everything.
Good news: my team and I are starting up ministry again next week(!!!) many updates with this are to come + some other good stuff-stay tuned.
