I woke up thinking about forgiveness. We've moved twice in the past year, so I'm very acquainted with my belongings, and the sense you sometimes get about certain things that tells you, "This is not important enough to me to haul up and down even one more flight of stairs..."
Pain can be like that, especially when it's caused by other people. Broken hearts and disappointments come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes it's not even the big stuff that weighs us down--it's little stuff, unattended.
Nichole Nordeman sings a song called No More Chains that I think is about this feeling, about the pressure and stress of hauling a heavy weight up and down a mountain. No one made her, she says. She just did it without thinking, believing it was part of being her. We don't have to pull those chains around, though. We can just forgive.
This is one of the coolest things about Jesus, the way he helps with forgiveness. We don't even have to mean it, I've learned. We just have to be willing to say it (the power of our words again), and invite him into the process. So today, I've been saying, "I choose to forgive ____, in Jesus' name." With each sentence, I feel lighter. It's good.
The last lines of this song say, "I should let you give me wings...I should let you set me free..."
A captivating possibility.
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4 comments:
Trish, that's very interesting to me, the idea that we don't have to mean it, we just have to speak it. I've been struggling with forgiveness for the last 2 1/2 years. I'm not even really sure what forgiveness is; I'm just pretty sure that I haven't done it yet, though I've chosen it several times and asked God for help. The idea that I can just keep doing that, and the feelings can follow later, is freeing.
My pastor said in his sermon a few Sundays ago on the topic of forgiveness, 'Whatever is not transformed, is transmitted'. This stopped me dead in my tracks and got me thinking....I have experienced being 'rejected' recently by someone I love very much and one thing I can see from these words, is that reason to reject has maybe got nothing to do with me, but is in fact the left over from a past event that has gone unforgiven. I have taken on bringing love to this relationship, and forgiving myself for having put my neck on the line and being vulnerable to love this person in the first place. There is nothing else to do and yet this requires constant practice.
I find it very powerful to say that out loud. I just named a whole bunch of people,as in: "I forgive___", some of whose names I haven't said out loud in years.
I am still struggling to forgive my parents; it comes as a relief to know that I don't have to always mean it, I just have to "show up" with willingness on my heart. I do have faith that mysteriously, God has been softening my heart and that he will continue to do so if I keep up my willingness.
I'm going to try this just because again, I can do words, the actual concept always seems to be beyond me but I really do love the idea of just starting out with words and building from there.
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