I always considered myself a forgiving person. I give people chance after chance after chance. That is forgiveness, right? Or so I thought. Allowing someone to repeat their mistakes isn't forgiveness, because after I have given them this chance, they let me down again. And after they let me down, I wonder why I was so gullible as to trust that they care enough to choose something different. I never forgave them. I gave them the chance to make it right so I didn't have to forgive them, because forgiveness is hard!
Forgiveness means I have to accept I'm hurt and allow it to be. I get so caught up in trying to make it right, I never give the chance to just accept things the way they are. If you always battle with the mistake, try to justify or change it, you will always resent it. Without accepting it, you cannot forgive it. And boy, do I have a hard time accepting!
I find myself harboring this resentment to the point that it spills over into every part of my life. I hear about someone getting married, and I just cling to my own hurt and resentment that someone else has what I've so desperately wanted. I pile hurt upon hurt, but this time, I am hurting myself, by holding on to how someone wronged me, I am keeping myself from healing.
I recently discovered battling resentment is part of AA and NA. Here is an exert I found:
Dear God, I have a resentment towards a person that I want to be free of. So, I am asking you to give this person everything I want for myself. Help me to feel compassionate understanding and love for this person. I pray that they will receive everything they need. Thank you God for your help and strength with this resentment. (BB, Freedom from Bondage: 552)
These instructions are for the above prayer (Big Book, Freedom from Bondage, p. 552):
'If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free...Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.'
Oh my goodness. I'm supposed to pray for the people who have hurt me to get all the things I have desired for myself. Are you kidding me?! But, I can say, hiding this hurt, this resentment, has only made me a very sad and ugly person on the inside. I've always balked the saying that forgiveness isn't for them, it's for you. How is it for me? But, I know, holding on to this will only cause me to suffer more. Maybe forgiving them really isn't about them. Maybe I do deserve the freedom of forgiveness, not forgiveness placed on me, but my forgiveness given to others. Maybe that is how I get back to joy, joy for others, and joy for myself.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7
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