Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned while at Training was about forgiveness and vulnerability. For me, I truly believe that it takes vulnerability with others to fully forgive any type of situation that has gone on in the past. Whether that forgiveness is in another person or in yourself, that’s a case by case basis. For me, forgiving myself for things I have done is probably the biggest hurdle I will need to overcome and have begun to run toward since being at camp.
I learned that the heart of un-forgiveness holds three things:
Entitlement
Bitterness / Anger
Fear
When I learned that, it blew me away. Because no matter how joyful and peppy I may seem on the outside, I do harbor a lot of anger and bitterness in my heart toward people and situations in my life that I no longer have control over. Finding healing from those things and properly forgiving myself is a process. It’s not time that heals, it is the process. If things aren’t properly processed, then they stick with us. We need to externalize our pain and deal with it as it comes up.
The tricky thing with me is that a lot of my pain simply comes from my own train of thought. The biggest hurdle I have to jump over is combating my own mind and the lies the devil feeds it. Being aware of that fact as the week went on was huge for me, but I still have a long road of hurdles ahead. And I am hungry for the way God is going to reveal more things to me.
We learned about how to ProActively deal with forgiveness, in turn, learning how to be vulnerable with one another as the week went on. AIM taught us a lot about journaling and new ways to let things out. In order to ProActively forgive, we need to be fully aware of our emotions as they arise. The speaker on this topic gave us four questions to consider when we are feeling a certain way:
-What is the most dominant painful emotion I have felt in the past few days?
-What caused that pain?
-Have I felt that emotion before? (This is the important question, sit in it).
-Who did I pour my pain out to and how did they react?
These questions have helped me process so much lately. It even helped me process emotions and become more aware of them when I was feeling weird at Training. I am hoping that over time, these four questions will help me forgive myself for sins I’ve committed, pain I’ve caused others and emotionally caused on myself, etc…
However, there is another part of forgiveness I am entirely forgetting to mention. If we desire to live a life of forgiveness, we also need to receive it from God the Father Himself! He freely gives grace and forgiveness like no other. To know that we are washed clean by the power of His blood should make us want to run laps around the yard! At training, I began to experience His forgiveness in a new way and I am looking forward to experiencing it and witnessing it even more fully as the Race goes on.
Are there people you need to forgive / emotions you need to come to terms with in your life? If so, listen to God and let Him work in your heart on forgiving yourself and / or the people that need forgiving in your life. When we forgive, we are freely able to receive and that is such a beautiful thing.
All my Love,
Ashley
PS. God is moving. I am over halfway to $7,000. Once the money and checks I have received recently get processed within the next week or so, I will be on my way there! I have been stepping WAY out of my comfort zone for this small leap forward. I believe in God’s provision. Please, I am asking that if you are able / willing to give, please help. Any amount means the entire world to me. When I am home at the end of August I will be writing a heaping pile of thank you’s to everyone who has donated thus far since April / May. Believe me, the wait for those thank you’s will be well worth it!
