Unwilling to Forgive

            I know I write more about forgiveness than any other topic, but it’s really important for me. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been one to hold grudges, long ones. My personal best, unfortunately, was twelve years. The Lord has been helping me greatly with this and I’ve gotten better at it. I even thought for a moment that I would never hold another grudge again.

            But something happened.

I’ve really been struggling lately to forgive this one person. I might have mentioned her before, though probably briefly. I won’t give all of the details, but the main gist of it is that I have a friend and she’s been hurting me a lot recently. Each time, I’ve tried my best to put on a brave face and forgive her. I refused to accept that nagging feeling to go back to my old ways and hold a grudge against her. For a while, I thought I was winning the battle.

Until today.

Today, she hurt me the worst. This time, I’m not the only one who got hurt over her actions. Her selfishness has finally reached a point where there are starting to be consequences. As her selfishness grows, more people are getting hurt.

            What’s worse, she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

            I don’t want to be angry with her, I really don’t. It’s tiring. Every ounce of anger that boils inside of me only drains double the amount of energy out of me. The crying has given me headaches. My heart aches with betrayal. I constantly feel like throwing random items in my room to release some stress. I’m so upset that I don’t know what to do.

            I keep turning to God, begging Him to force me to forgive her already so I won’t feel so bad anymore. I think this whole time I haven’t forgiven her at all. I’ve just been asking for God’s help and pushing the anger deeper and deeper within me until I thought I couldn’t see it anymore. But every time she hurts me again, it all comes rushing to the surface begging to be seen, until the process starts all over again.

            Sounds like I’ve been holding a grudge after all.

            Maybe the reason why I haven’t forgiven her is because I don’t want to. I know that sounds bad because God would forgive her in a heartbeat the moment she asks for forgiveness. She hasn’t asked me, of course, and maybe that’s why I can’t. I’ve been asking God to help me, but I haven’t been doing my part. I need to be willing for God to help me take the next step.

            But how can I do my part if I just know she’s going to hurt me again?

            Perhaps I should just accept that this is just the way she is. She might not be able to help her actions, for all I know. I guess I shouldn’t expect her to change herself; I know how difficult that can be. Well, this might just mean I have to keep her at an arms length and that we can’t be friends anymore.

            After all we’ve gone through together that just might be what hurts the most.

            Oh Lord, forgive her, because I sure don’t know if I can…

Apologizing to Myself

            How come it’s so difficult to forgive ourselves sometimes? Of course, it can be difficult to forgive other people, but sometimes it seems like its easier to accept someone else’s apology then our own.

            At least, that’s the way it is with me.

            I won’t lie. Just like everyone else in this world, I have my share of things I’m not proud of. Some of them I can forgive and forget, some I even just forget, but some I just can’t find it in me to forgive at all, let alone forget.

            I don’t think God agrees with me, though.

            The whole point behind Christianity is that Jesus took our sins upon Him and died for us. Because of this, God can forgive us our sins. That’s how much He loves us. Literally, just like that He forgives us at any moments notice. All that we have to do is ask for forgiveness and we get it instantly.

            What I’ve found, at least in my case, is that I ask God for forgiveness, but don’t bother to forgive myself. That can’t be right. I mean, if God thinks I’m worth being forgiven, why can’t I agree?

            One of my problems is that I hold grudges. Long ones. I’m talking about grudges as long as the Grinch had against the town of Whoville and Christmas (I like Dr. Seuss, okay?). I know that’s not right, though, since God never holds grudges against anyone, and I’ve been working on that. Thanks to the Lord, I’ve been able to grow and get better at not holding grudges against other people. I’ve been happy about that.

            It seems like there’s one other person I’m still holding a grudge against, though: Myself.

            I really don’t know why this is. I think it might be easier to forgive other people because they’re the ones who’ve made the mistake. It also might be easier to ask for forgiveness since I know God will always forgive me unconditionally. But what about when I’m the one whose made the mistake? Can I forgive myself unconditionally?

            Thinking about it, I think I can forgive myself by asking two questions. First, what I have to think is if I were someone else, would I forgive me? The answer could be yes a lot of the time. I mean, looking back, I can see that sometimes I honestly didn’t know better. In that case, it makes perfect sense to forgive myself.

            And when the answer is no, that’s when I have to ask myself the second question. If I were God, would I forgive me?

The answer will always be yes.

The truth is that if I’ve gotten to the point where I can ask God for forgiveness, I should be able to ask myself for forgiveness too. If I can let go of my anger at someone else, that means I’m capable of doing that for myself too. And if I can accept God’s forgiveness, I should be able to accept my own as well. I just need to remember that I deserve my own forgiveness just as much as any other person does.

Next time I make a mistake I just need to remember that if I can accept apologies, apologize to others, apologize to God, then I can apologize to myself.