Forgiveness: This is How and the Time is Now

In the next four minutes I am going to walk you through the process on how to forgive and how to discover when do you know it’s time.

Forgiveness is not a one and done thing. It’s a continual process.

You have to make the conscious decision to forgive someone or even yourself.

Forgiveness means to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake. It doesn’t mean you have to live in oblivion to the hurt that you feel.

Don’t believe the lie that you have to forgive and forget. Because that is impossible. It may feel overwhelming trying to forget what someone or something has caused.

For example, when you go into battle. Where blood is shed, cuts are made, and wounds are formed. You won’t forget the things that happened because scars will be left behind that all hold a story. So, when I say forgive I’m not talking about forgetting the story that may have been birthed in that hurt.

What I am saying is that you don’t have to lose sleep because of fear, pain, rejection, or betrayal, or the lies that were told about you.

Alyssa Bethke, a co-author of the book called Love that Lasts, once said “When you choose to forgive someone, however, it’s not a one-time thing. It’s an ongoing action. You forgive in that instance, and whenever it comes to mind again, you remember you forgave that person and choose not to dwell on the sin committed against you.”

When choosing to forgive and to now love someone that has hurt you, it is important to know that grace is very needed. Or else true love and forgiveness will never be attained.

Grace is giving something that one doesn’t deserve or receiving something that you don’t deserve.

For example, God gives me grace everyday by continuing to breathe breath into my lungs. His grace comes from nothing that I have done to deserve it. It is simply given. I sin, I make mistakes and the wages of sin is death. But God’s grace is sufficient and is renewed everyday. He chooses to love me despite my wrongs, he chooses to forgive me despite the amount of times I have disobeyed, and he chooses to give me grace despite the times I have turned away.

To me that is the heart of true love and forgiveness.

It’s important to know that forgiveness is also not a one way streak. Sometimes forgiveness is for yourself just as much as it is for someone else. Just like grace is for yourself just as much as it is for someone else.

Don’t feel shameful or guilty for the things in life you may have done “wrong” because we all fall short, you aren’t the only one. Extend yourself grace, forgive yourself, but also love and take care of yourself. There’s no way you can properly love and forgive someone else if you can’t even do it for yourself.

If you are wondering when is the proper time to forgive or when is forgiveness needed, take a minute to answer these questions to yourself:

• When you hear the name of a particular person does the pit of your stomach fall?

• When you see a picture of this person, is your first thought positive or negative?

• Do you create weird scenarios in your head about how you’re going to tell them off or what you’re going to do if you get the chance to confront them?

• Do you constantly ponder on how bad they have hurt you?

Now that you have thought about these questions, I want to let you know that forgiveness is not always asked for. Some times you have to make the decision to forgive someone even if they didn’t ask you to forgive them in the first place.

You don’t always have to confront someone to forgive them. You can simply make the decision up in your mind and in your heart and choose to move on in grace. You don’t have to call them out, expose them, or subliminally post things about them on social media. You can simply just choose to move forward. No longer allowing the things that once hurt you to harden your heart.

I’m not telling you to expect this process to be easy. But I am encouraging you to at least take a step forward in the process of forgiveness.

Love keeps no record or wrong.

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