One word: Forgiveness

Forgiveness: a word so underused and misunderstood it has become virtually obsolete! I myself refuse to ask for it and offer it as freely as I should. If I did, if we all did, this place might seem a little less painful!

I journal often, and by often I mean 3-4 times a day, most of the time it is me talking to God, putting my thoughts on paper, trying to make sense of whatever mess I am most assuredly in...and God's subsequent response or thoughts on the matter. But sometimes, out of nowhere, He hits me with something out of the blue, that hasn't been on my mind in quite sometime (which is probably why He hits me with it in the first place). As a general rule, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I stop and write down whatever it is that He has said because if not I am sure to forget it. So here is what He told me while I was ringing on register 4 at Old Navy Grapevine Mills on Tuesday Nov. 7, that I wrote down on the back of some receipt tape and later transfered to my journal...

"Forgiveness is the key to your future because it unlocks the doors and breaks down the walls of your past."

"With the ability to forgive, comes the capacity for true self-evaluation"

"Forgiveness is vital to life, without it, you are not free to be human!"

Wow! Holy crap that is amazing! The first one was pretty good and I was going wow God, that is so true because, as anyone who has done any deep forgiving will know, forgiveness is 99% about the person doing the forgiving! Not that it's not beneficial to be forgiven, it's one of the greatest things in all the world but there is something inside of you that is freed when you open your heart to forgive someone that you have every right not to!

The second one was amazing because we can never fully see; ourselves, our shortcomings, and the way we hurt others when our eyes are constantly focused on the shortcomings of those around us!

The third one is my favorite because it is sooooo ambiguous and awesome in it's scope! It encompasses so much and makes sense of alot of my own heartache! I love that He used the word "vital"...I think it gives it a sense of urgency because we are not just missing the mark with each other, oh no, we are failing to, not only ask, but receive true forgiveness for ourselves from Him! When we walk around with a burden of guilt that we were never meant to carry, we constantly find ourselves trying to dump it on the people around us and it is generally the people we care the most about who take the brunt of it! But when we are free to be forgiven and to walk in that freedom, we are free to give of ourselves to others and to offer that freedom to them! I also find that people who refuse to accept forgiveness (ie ME) feel the need to compensate in some way for their faults, the result is generally a pride in the things that they CAN accomplish in order to take the focus off of the things they feel they CAN'T!

So forgiveness frees me not to live however I want to because God will forgive me anyway, but to be human and live by trial and error and walk in His mercy and to truly enjoy and indulge in what He has given me without constantly trying to prove myself to Him, me and everyone else I come into contact with! He knows that I am human and He doesn't expect the impossible from me...just the improbable! Learning to accept His forgiveness will free me to forgive those around me...man what a difference that would make, oh what joy that could bring and what peace if we were half as hard on each other as we are. The funny thing is, we think it's hard to forgive but it's harder work to hold onto something that ugly than it is to let it go! A wise woman once told me that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person! I don't know about yall but that's some good stuff! I could go on for days but yall probably don't want to keep listening to me preach and I have to be at work at 8 am so I'll stop here but there is plenty more where this came from so stay posted!