Forgiveness – Day 3

We can get ourselves in a knot about guilt. We tell ourselves the other person deserved it, we had our reasons, or our circumstances were special. Or we convince ourselves that if we admit we did wrong, we’ll have less self-esteem than we do—and we don’t have that much right now.

There are situations where someone keeps doing the same thing over and over to us. Before they’ve finished saying sorry, they’re doing it again. In these circumstances, it may be time to see whether an addiction is involved or whether boundaries need to be set.

Then there’s artificial guilt, the kind we need to reject. We get it when others are trying to manipulate us, when we say no, or when we take care of ourselves.

Guilt can be part of grief. The guilt isn’t real, but it feels real because we think we should have or could have done something to prevent the loss.

We may feel like we need to hang on to our resentments because if we don’t, we’ll be vulnerable again.

Sometimes people aren’t ready to forgive us yet, or we’re not ready to forgive them. It can be difficult to forgive when someone hurts us a lot. Forgiveness can take a long time.

And if we don’t feel our feelings first, forgiveness won’t stick.

Challenge: The most challenging thing about forgiveness isn’t believing God forgives us. It’s learning to forgive and making peace with ourselves. If you can’t do it all at once, try baby steps. See how good it feels to let love in?

From the book: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact

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