This piece is a tough one for me to write. Part of it is because, it’s still a lot of hurt that I still need to heal from. The other part is, I’ve never been the one to forgive and forget too easily. It takes me a while to accept that someone could really cross me to a point where I feel hurt inside my heart. Then again, it made me who I am today.
A lot of times we associate forgiveness with an apology, and I was just thinking to myself…but, what if you never got the apology. Now when I started this piece off, it was from a perspective of dealing with hurt from a loved one who you lost and never getting the opportunity to “make things right”. As I was thinking about some life events, I realized that the ones who hurt me the most were the closest ones to me and most of those people are still alive. Death is a huge factor of “unresolved issues” but, when that’s not the case… how can I truly forgive yo ass when you are deadass not even remorseful! I had to remember something though, you don’t forgive for that person…you forgive for yourself. I felt like I had to still check my attitude in some situations because you can’t control everything. The sad reality is that dead or alive, I just may never get that apology ever! My concern was how to move forward with no ill will in my heart for that person. I just want to accept it for what it is and move on with lessons learned.
So, I had a little talk with God, and he gave me Matthew 6:14. It’s been a while, but y’all should’ve know the sprinkle of Jesus was coming. Let me break it down for y’all…so basically the scripture says, “if you forgive the ones who sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you”. THAT JAWN HIT HARD! When I read that, I was like mannneee come on! Like you want me to forgive everybody who did me dirty? EVERYBODY??? So many different life and traumatic experiences came to mind rapidly and I began to get emotional. How could I forgive someone who has harmed me? How could I forgive someone who has used and abused me? How could I forgive someone for betraying me? How could I forgive someone who has abandoned me? I had to read it a few times to really grasp both parts of this scripture and the more I read it, the more I thought about the things that I’ve done to hurt others, and more importantly hurt God. I didn’t always apologize when I hurt others, but what if God turned his back on me and said I can not forgive you my daughter, for you have not forgiven others for what they did to you…. like bro, I’m going to HELL with an outfit soaked in gasoline! This is why I said it earlier in this piece, you don’t forgive for others…. you forgive for yourself.
I would categorize this process as easier said than done, because forgiveness is hard even with an apology, sometimes. I just want to encourage everyone reading this to be mindful of others and how you treat them, especially the ones closest to you …because at the end of the day, I rather have the forgiveness of God over anyone else’s any day!
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