I am 31 years old, and honestly, I've never really had a hard time forgiving anyone until the last year of my life. I'm a girl that will accept an apology and go on with life. Fortunately, I do not have a nature of holding grudges or staying mad at anyone for a long period of time. There have been times over the last several months that I wondered if I had just not been hurt bad enough to be unforgiving...because for the first time in my life, I had an attitude of unforgiveness.
God allowed me to go through some things over the last year or so that grew me in many ways. I have learned that with suffering and times of hurt many other things come along-such as a stronger prayer life, a deep desire to seek God, building relationships with others who have suffered or been hurt, and most of all, for me, a lesson on forgiveness.
I do not want to go into details about who or what happened when I was hurt, but I do want you to know that the Lord taught me so many valuable lessons through this time. One of the most difficult lessons I had to learn was forgiveness. When we are hurt, it is easy to justify why we feel the way we feel, and honestly, our justifications may be right...and I believe that God wants to hear all of this, but justifying doesn't make it ok to be unforgiving.
Colossians 3: 13 says, "Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." WOW...as the LORD FORGAVE YOU. I knew in my heart that I needed to pray for about the reason I was feeling so hurt. One day, while praying, God clearly said to me, "How can you NOT forgive someone?? YOU ARE FORGIVEN." I'm not going to say that I jumped up right then and said, "I forgive you for hurting me." I certainly didn't respond like that. As a matter of fact, I still said to myself at times, "I just can't get over this." However, I was very convicted about my attitude and actions. Forgiveness for me in this situation was a process.
I remember telling a very close friend that there were times when I would be talking to someone who had hurt me deeply, and I would have to say in my heart and in my mind, "I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you." There are times that I could have allowed myself to get mad ALL OVER AGAIN, but I was constantly reminded by the Holy Spirit that Christ forgave me, and I must forgive others LIKE HE FORGIVES ME. We are all sinners....ALL of us..and this means we are going to fall short, and sometimes hurt other people.
Maybe you are dealing with a similar situation, and you are struggling to forgive someone. I encourage you to get in the Word. We must cling to His promises and be obedient to His commands. I cannot explain the freedom that I experienced when I finally let go, and began the forgiveness process in this situation. The crazy thing is, most of the time, the people who hurt or offend us, do not even know they've done so. Therefore, if I'm carrying around the weight of anger and resentment, it is only hurting me. Satan loves it when we are focused on ourselves!!! He LOVES our pity parties! We cannot let him have the victory..he has been defeated! It is not our "job" to pay anyone back for something they've done to us. We will ALL answer to the Lord for our actions, attitudes, and even our intentions.
I pray that somehow God has used my situation to speak to you. I still struggle daily to forgive. We must depend on Christ to help us.
"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Ephesians 4:32
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