I wrote the following blog post several months ago, but never ended up publishing it. It's incredible looking back on the journey towards freedom that I walked through. I have seen the fruits from this freedom in my life, so I thought I would share that journey with you. If you're struggling with forgiving someone, I pray that God will give you the strength and courage to deal with it, and that you will begin to walk towards the freedom and healing that comes when we forgive.
Today was a great day! Let me tell you a bit about it... But first I should give you the background information.
Have you ever been confronted by a situation that you realize is bringing a huge portion of your crap to the surface, and you didn't even realize this huge issue was there, eating away at you, and then BAM there it is all big, ugly, and right there in your face? I went through this very situation about a month ago. I can't go into details, as the whole story isn't mine to tell, but I'll give you the important parts so that you're able to follow where I'm heading.
Let's refer to this situation as "the offense." what happened really isn't the important part, the important part comes later. So "the offense" happened, and I got really angry. Then, however, I began to notice that the anger I was feeling wasn't actually connected to what had happened in that moment. I began to be confronted by memories from my past, where I felt I had been wronged in a similar way. The memories of how I was treated, how I felt the other people involved responded, and ultimately how much all these things ended up affecting my life caused me to be very angry and bitter. Little did I know, these things had been eating away at me for over 6 years.
So, fast forward from that point to last week. I belong to this amazing small group, that consists of other ladies that want to build and grow in leadership. As often happens, once school starts, most of us had not had the time to read for our small group, so instead, we took the time to pray for and encourage each other. When it came my turn to be prayed for, I got many super encouraging words from my fellow leaders in the group, but one word from one of the girls had to do about the current state of my heart. My wonderful friend, while saying it totally in love, told me that God had shown her a picture of my heart, and that pieces of it had died, and appeared rotten. To go with that, she said that God was saying that while there were parts if my heart that were dead right now, that God was there, and he was going to bring life back to those places. At this point, all I knew was that she was right, there were dead places in my heart, I just didn't know what had "killed them", and how they could be brought back to life.
As many people in my life know, I have sought out mentoring from several very wise and wonderful ladies in leadership at the church that I attend. When I started recognizing this anger inside me, my mentor and I set up a meeting and decided we would tackle it, as I realized that the anger I was feeling was pretty deeply rooted.
Part of me didn't feel like dealing with this, because I knew it meant I had to get super vulnerable, and as often accompanies growth, I knew this was going to hurt...ALOT...before it got better. So when I walked into Krissy's house this morning, I felt this huge weight of anxiety and fear in my chest.
The fact of the matter is, I felt wronged. I felt that important and foundational spiritual and emotional needs had not been met in my life, and I wanted justice! So, rather than giving it over to God, my hurt and insecurities turned into unforgiveness and bitterness. And that unforgiveness was like poison to my heart, slowly but surely killing it piece by piece.
Now so far, this sounds like a pretty depressing story... I promise, it gets better!
So, like the good mentor that she is, Krissy agreed to help me work through this, since it would overwhelm me every time I tried to tackle it. So, we started off by asking God what was causing this anger, and continued on to ask him about where it had come from, to what lies I was believing about myself, based on what I had experienced years ago. So, slowly, with God's guidance, we began to work through why I was angry, and what the root of it was. Then it came time to forgive those people... And it was clear, I wasn't quite ready to let go of this quite yet, so we asked God why I didn't want to forgive them, and low and behold, He answered our question with a pretty blunt answer. You want to know what the answer was? I was afraid it was going to hurt too much to let go of it. And I realized that was true! This was something I had been carrying around with me for over six years! This was something I had gotten used to carrying around, so, of course it was going to hurt to deal with! On the other side, once you've found healing and forgiveness, it's easy to say, "the pain is worth it!" But, I'll be honest, I just didn't want to deal with the hurt! We kept digging in though, and asked God what forgiveness and letting go would do, and you'll never guess what I saw... I saw that dead and rotting heart that I talked about earlier, and a picture of my fist, clenched and holding on to the unforgiveness. And slowly, as my hand began to unclench and release the unforgiveness, I watched as those dead spots of my heart began to heal, and I heard the word "restoration."
You know what the best part is? He wasn't lying. As I began to pray once more for forgiveness and released the people I was holding in unforgiveness, I was overcome by an amazing sense of peace, and of the Holy Spirit washing over me, and restoring me! I can testify now, that the pain was worth it, as I walk around feeling joy and feeling a lightness that I hadn't felt when I was burdened with unforgiveness!
If you're struggling with unforgiveness, just know that God is there, just waiting to help you walk into freedom from it! Don't let it fester and grow and cause you to be taken more and more into captivity by it! Because He CAN walk you into a freedom you never knew you could walk in! And let me tell you, this freedom is sooooo much better than any skewed version of justice that you think unforgiveness is bringing you. Leave justice to God, I promise, he can see the whole picture, and He knows what He's doing!
