Forgiveness
By Cynthia
Bailey-Rug
Mathew 6:14-15:
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you:
But if ye
forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses." (KJV)
Over
the last 12 years I have been with my husband, one person we know has made it
abundantly clear she doesn’t like me, or think I am good enough to be married
to my husband. The years of
criticisms and judgment I have heard since we met had left me full of resentment
and anger towards her. But, lately,
I hadn’t really thought much about it. I
just assumed I’d forgiven her. Apparently,
I was wrong. This morning, God
showed me quite clearly that I still harbored much anger and even hatred towards
her. As I told God I was justified
in feeling this way, and reminded Him of some of her words, He showed me some
things that I believe may help anyone who is also harboring anger, unforgiveness
and even hatred for those who have hurt them.
First,
hurting, angry people tend to lash out. Those
who have mistreated or even abused you are most likely full of anger,
unforgiveness and hurt themselves. They
are probably treating you badly because they are just so full of those horrible
feelings it overflows into other relationships, or maybe even because you did
something that reminded them of their abuser.
But most likely, this person doesn't mean to hurt you.
It isn't personal- they would lash out at anyone in your position.
Second,
try to step into the other person’s shoes for a moment. Maybe you said or did something insensitive and they are
reacting to how your words hurt, belittled, trivialized, etc. them.
Not everyone knows to confront those types of situations, and instead
they mistreat the person who hurt them. Ask
God to help you see what you may have said or done that caused these problems.
And
third, possibly the most eye opening for me, is think about what you know about
this person. They may have never
learned how to treat people properly because they were mistreated themselves!
In my situation, I know this lady was mistreated by many people in her
life. Mistreatment was all she
knew! She didn’t have a good
example of loving, kind people to learn by.
Her examples were judgmental, critical people, and some who treated her
as if she wasn't important. Also,
this lady came from a rather difficult childhood and married at the tender age
of 16. When I thought about these
things, suddenly, the mistreatment of me made sense.
How can one know how to treat others if they haven’t seen a good
example? If all you see
is one way of treating people, then that is most likely what you will end up
doing yourself, because you don’t know it’s wrong!
So the
next time someone mistreats you, I encourage you to stop reacting with anger,
and take a moment to think about why this person is acting this way.
Ask God to show you what’s going on here.
If you were wrong, apologize quickly to smooth over things.
If you weren’t wrong, then ask the Father to help you forgive.
He will help you! Since this morning’s revelations, I have mostly forgiven my
offender. Not entirely, but I did
have many years of anger built up inside to loose.
Forgiveness will come, in time, as it is a process.
Remember- what took time to create the anger you feel will take time to
forgive. But, the forgiveness I
have felt so far has enabled me to pray for her, thereby loosing the grip of
anger on me so I can forgive more, and pray more.
It’s quite a circle!
One
final thing, please do not confuse “forgiving” with “forgetting.”
I think many people who hear about forgiveness think it means letting
people mistreat you. Forgetting
simply sets yourself up for more abuse in many cases.
Know your boundaries on what you will and won’t tolerate. I strongly believe in picking your battles, so to speak.
Let go of the little things, and confront the larger things.
For example, if your husband comes home after a bad day and snaps at you,
let it go. We all make little
mistakes like that. If after a bad
day he comes home drunk and kicks your dog, well, then it’s time to say
something to him about this behavior!
I pray
that my revelations of this morning help you to lead a more peaceful, joyful
life. God bless and keep you!