Forgive As The Lord Forgave You

I have never been very good at forgiveness. My specialty is holding a grudge, and I am a champion at it. I can play the victim very well because I naturally feel like a victim. To the way that my eyes/brain see it, I wasn't blessed with the natural beauty, smarts, or ease with people that others around me were. And once I decided that I had been dealt a bad hand, well, if I was going to be the worst in the room then I was going to be the best at being worst. And so I developed my skills at being the victim, at being unloving and unlovable, until it became so natural that it felt wrong to be anything else. As I have grown in my Christian walk, I have attempted to throw off those feelings, because I understand now that I am worth much more than I ever dreamed. I am a child of God, and He decided I was worth enough that He sent Jesus to save me. That makes me priceless. I am one of a kind, precious, and loved. I feel like that issue is resolving itself through prayer and bible study. Even though my feelings of victimization and my ability to forgive tie very closely together, the second issue appears to need more work. 

I have been wronged. We all have. That seems to be an inevitable part of life. Because we are human, no matter how good our intentions are and how much we want to do the right thing, we are going to hurt others. That means that I am going to be hurt by others, and now that I am a Christian I need to decide how God wants me to deal with those hurts. Somehow, I don't think that sulking angry and hurt in a corner while making sure the person who hurt me knows how awful they are is the way that I should be going. Doesn't feel very Christian, so I decided to research God's idea of forgiveness today. 

In the KJV of the bible, the word forgive appears 56 times, the word forgiven appears 42 times, and the word forgiveness appears 7 times. It is described in many different verses and parables. I think that the reason it is mentioned so many times is because this is such a hard concept to grasp. To look at it from a human standpoint, forgiveness has to be earned. If someone does something wrong to me, to be forgiven they must meet the following qualifications:  they must be sorry, they must never do it again, and most importantly you must want to forgive them. You should take the time to decide if you are ready to forgive. It would be even better if they were made to feel bad and punished for a while so that they could learn their lesson. However, I am quickly figuring out that is not how God sees forgiveness or how He intends it to be. 

If God forgave me the way that I forgive other people, I would be in real trouble. Big, gigantic, King Kong sized trouble. I forgive grudgingly, and only after I am SURE that the other person is sorry and has learned their lesson, and I feel that they have made it up to me. If that was how God forgave, then I would still be paying for the horrible wrongs that I have done to Him. I would never be able to make up for everything I have done. But that's not how He works, thank goodness. Once I repented and asked Him to forgive, He did just that: forgave me completely, holding nothing back, and totally forgetting every wrong I had ever done. He didn't dig the knife in a little deeper to make sure I got the point; He rejoiced that I had come home. He didn't eventually forgive me while warning me that He wasn't going to trust me to not sin again, so He wasn't going to forget. He didn't remind me subtly of who I used to be through His actions. So can I not do the same for others? If so much more has been forgiven me, can I not put away my pride so that I can pass on the feeling of grace that has been so freely given to me? 

Forgiveness, like love, is not always a feeling. Sometimes our emotions are strong, and can cause us to act towards others in ways that are not okay. When that happens, we have to make a decision to love, and forgive, the way God intends it to be: fully and without reservation, holding nothing back, and letting the wrong go. The greatest gift I have ever been given is the Lord's forgiveness and the freedom from judgement for my sins. Basically, even if my heart is hurting, and it feels like forgiveness is impossible, I have decided that I will wake up each day with a fresh decision to forgive, and to treat everyone with the same love and grace that I am blessed with. It's not complicated, it's forgiveness. It's love, the greatest commandment. Jesus set the example, and to fully realize God's plan for my life, I have to follow with all of my being. As I learn to forgive others, perhaps I will gain a greater understanding of the forgiveness that has been so generously been offered to me. 

God bless you, and thank you for reading.

All Things Are Become New

It is the morning of January 1st, 2016 and I am not hungover. I don't smell like cigarette smoke. I haven't been up for hours eating a crazy amount of food, binge watching TV, and basically hiding from the world. I didn't cry myself to sleep last night, suffering with loneliness. I am not wearing the same clothes that I have been for the last week because I don't have the energy to do more than get out of bed. I am not dressed as ugly as possible, and am not acting as ugly as possible, because of my belief that the best way to keep people away from me is to be as unattractive as possible, both physically and emotionally. I didn't lay sobbing on my bathroom floor, longing to die, wishing I was brave enough to end it all. I didn't spend the entire night telling myself that no one loved me, that I was just a bother and in the way, and that people would be glad if I just ended it. I didn't spend hours in grief for my lost baby, wallowing in my desperation to join him, while at the same time knowing that if I did manage to do one thing right and end my life properly, I still wouldn't join him because I had no relationship with God. I haven't dodged my friend's and family's phone calls because I hated the world and everyone in it. I didn't scream and yell at God, and then spend a while longer telling myself that it didn't matter, because there really was no God. 

Sadly, there is no exaggeration here. That was my life at the beginning of 2015. I was bogged down with depression and a longing to be someone else, anyone else, anyone but who I was. I embraced my addictions because they were the only things that kept me going. If I could just stay drunk enough, then I wouldn't have to think about things. I lived for my routine, food was my friend, hatred was my companion, and tears were the only constant thing in my life. Last night, as I prepared to ring in 2016 at a church service, I couldn't help but pause and see all the differences this last year has brought, or more correctly that the Lord has brought in this last year. I wanted to just take a minute and do a quick review of all the things the Lord has done in my life this year. You know how my year started out, but let's look at how it ended...

• I was saved in August.  
• I have not had a cigarette or a drink in four and a half months. 
• I attend church every week with joy in my heart. 
• I do bible studies at home and I enjoy learning what the Lord wants me to do with my life, who the Lord wants me to be. 
• Prayer used to make me uncomfortable and uneasy, now I delight it spending time talking to the Lord. 
• I am clean, dressed in clean clothes, and more importantly a smile on my face. 
• I no longer let food hold an addiction over me, and am very quickly becoming a much healthier person. I lead a much more active lifestyle, and my clothes are all getting too big, and it is exciting. 
• I actively participate in things now, from work parties, to friendly get-togethers at my house. The lonely girl that I used to be is gone. I now have more friends than I can count, and the best of my friends is the Lord. Jesus is beside me always and is my constant company. 
• I am no longer filled with bitterness that others have been blessed with children when I have not, rather I am now seeing that the Lord's plans and timing are perfect, and that I have a different calling in life than what I thought I was going to. The Lord has showed me that my life has a purpose, and that my old dreams did not fit with His wishes for me. The Lord has given me the greatest comfort that I have ever been offered. I am able to truly enjoy and love other people's children without the sour note that used to accompany it. 
• I am in the church choir and, for the first time in my life, I truly enjoy singing because I recognize it as a gift given by the Lord that can touch people. 
• My house is clean and organized, and well taken care of. I have rid it of all the negative and demonic influences that used to rule me, and everywhere you look in my house you will see a sign of He who rules my life now. 

Truly, there have been too many changes to list them all because the biggest change, my salvation, has wrought such a change in my life that no part of me has escaped. My body, my heart, my mind, my house, my activities, my words, my loves, my dreams, my wishes, my hopes, my prayers, my sorrows, my joys, my friends, every part of me and my life has been transformed by the Lord, and I am now truly experiencing joy for the first time in my life. I cannot wait to see what the Lord has planned for me in 2016, and my biggest wish is that I be aware enough of His will that I will follow His plan the whole year through. I may slip and fall along the way, but I have total faith that the Lord will see me through. Out of all the new years that I have experienced, this is the first that is full of faith, hope, love, and joy. 

My chains are gone, I've been set free. 

My God my Savior has ransomed me. 

And like a flood His mercy reigns. 

Unending love. Amazing Grace.