Live, Learn, and Let Go

Over this year there have been a few things that have made me start thinking more deeply about forgiveness.

Usually when things happen I don’t hold a grudge or try to get even. I just try to move past the hurt, but I started to realize this is just a way of suppressing my feelings, instead of feeling them, and healing them.

I realize that forgiveness is more for ourselves than the other person, and I also realized that I was carrying a lot of unforgiveness. There were things I had “gotten over” or “moved past” that still got me worked up in anger, at times to the point of tears.

Lately I really have begun to understand that forgiving someone is for our own good. The Bible even says we can miss out on blessings by carrying unforgiveness in our hearts.

So, one night as I was praying, after many weeks of feeling hurt and heavy from expecting an apology I knew was never going to come; I prayed forgiveness into each relationship that I was holding pain from. I woke up the next morning one hundred pounds lighter because I wasn’t holding space for the hurt anymore. I wasn’t expecting the apology anymore, and I wasn’t hurt that the apology would never come.

I was freed from the pain and weight of unforgiveness. The situations I was holding pain from did change me and how I see things in the world. But today I am better for it, not worse off as I felt a few weeks ago.

Instead of “go with the flow”, my motto has become, “live, learn, and let go”.