A Season To Forgive

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9. ESV

Good Morning Girlfriends:

Looking back on my childhood days, we were not what you would have called a poor family and we were not a rich family either, so I guess we would have been what people used to say as a "middle class" family. Both parents worked in order to provide for my sister and I, and we had the things that we needed to get by, as well as some of the up and above things, being born in the later "60's" era.

As I share, I can only share from my prospective of what I saw and felt growing up. Sure we had things growing up, a snowmobile was always in the yard to take a trip on, we had three-wheeler which was called a "mud bug" back in those days, we always had a camper to travel in on summer vacations, but when I was little I didn't seem to feel the love from my father, a lot of the times he was a nasty man. I remember telling my mother when I was sixteen, that when I was to ever have children, I would never treat them the way I was treated, and I meant it.

Many years later, there was a time that I was reflecting back on my childhood and I began to think about how my father was raised in order for him to be the man he had become. I remember hearing the story of how his father had left his family when he was born because he was born with a slight disformity, leaving behind his mother to raise four children on her own. He had left home at the early age of fifteen, because his mother probably had become hurt and angry for being left to raise children by herself, so he went out on his own to work in the woods, as many did back in that day. As I thought about what my father had come through, I could understand the reason why he was the way he was, but as a result from his childhood, it showed me how he had never dealt with some things in order to make himself a better person.

Girlfriends, there is always going to be someone or even many someone's that is going to hurt us or do us wrong, we can't get through life without that ever happening, so I wanted to share five little steps that we can take in order to heal, to forgive and move on from those hurtful places.

1. Reflect on the situation...think bout what happened and maybe why it happened.

2. Put yourself in the other person's shoes...think about the things that has happened to them in their life, what kind of background did they come from.

3. Choose to learn from the experience...you are not accepting it but you are understanding more of what that person has come through, and dealing with.

4. Let it go...when you let it go, you are releasing yourself from the hurt, pain, disappointment, because you have a better understanding of things.

5. Decide where you want to go from here...if it was someone other than a family member, you do not have to continue on with that relationship, if it was a family member, it's kind of hard to get a round that one, but when we forgive it releases us from any emotional pain.

As time went by, I learned to love my father from a different perspective, I thought of all the wonderful things he had done for our family over the years. He was a very hard worker and a wonderful provider, as I said we always had things to go adventures with, he was a carpenter so he would build my sister and I many wonderful things, and if something was broke or fell apart, he was there to fix it. It was in the hospital a few years later, when my father was not well, it was his heart, it was on a Thursday evening when my two youngest daughters and I had went to visit him, before leaving the room that night we had exchanged hugs and kisses. As I bent down to give my dad a hug and a kiss on the cheek, I told him I loved him and his eyes welled up with tears, not saying anything back, but his tears told me he loved me too. This was the first time that I could ever remember kissing my dad and saying "I love you" to him, as I had never heard those words from him growing up, but it didn't matter at that time, and as I was driving home that night, I felt that it would be the last time I would see my dad alive. I was right, on Monday morning my sister and I, and our husbands were on our way back to the hospital, we were met in front of his room by our mother, as she told us that he had passed ten minutes before we arrived.

This was not during the Christmas season, but Christmas time is a time of miracles and it's a time for forgiving. If there is anyone who has hurt you over the last little while or maybe even years ago, let this this be the Christmas season to forgive them, so that you can walk in freedom once and for all. We do not know how much time we have on this earth, so why hold on to things that do not matter any more, let it go and forgive, it's for you as well as for the other person. Merry Christmas!

Let's Pray,

Precious Jesus, You are the wonder working, miracle working God. I thank you Lord for giving me the time that you did for me back many years ago in that hospital room to make things right in my heart and Lord I lift up each one here today to you that they would make things right in their heart with whoever that person may be that did them wrong, or hurt them, Lord let this be the Christmas season of forgiving in the Mighty, Mighty name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

Be blessed sweet ones and pass the blessings on.