I ended up having a very good lilac year. My bushes have scented the air, and I wonder if this is what Heaven smells like...
Today I want to share with you the process God took me through so that I could find my way toward forgiving others. And by that I am talking about forgiving BIG stuff, not the trivial little nit-picking things that hurt, but don't alter the course of your life. (If you are just tuning in here, please go back and read the previous three blog entries).
As I shared previously, I was willing to forgive and move forward, but I was stuck in the pain and bitterness. Then I read a little book called the "Christian's Secret to a Happy Life", which encouraged me to ask God to conform my will to His Will. My will was to hate the person until I died, His Will was for me to forgive an move on.
So I earnestly prayed, told God that I was willing to forgive, but couldn't get there by myself. I asked Him to conform my will so that it became His Will.
When I got up off my knees, I wish I could tell you that I was instantly relieved from the burden of bitterness that I carried, but that was not the case. Looking back, I realized that from that point God began taking me through a process toward forgiveness. I know that God works with different people in different ways, He custom designs our sanctification because he knows us so well. But I will tell you how he worked it through me.
Day by day, I began to go back and remember things about the person that I wanted to forgive. Things I had forgotten that the Holy Spirit was bringing to my mind. Painful things. Everything was re-exposed over a period of time, and I was almost reliving the grief. For awhile, I was only more ticked off than before I began the process.
Now why would that be going on? Perhaps because the pain was like a boil, it needed to he cleaned out, the infection of bitterness needed to be exposed to the sunlight.
And I went through weeks if not months of that.
Then I began to examine myself honestly to see if I played a part in it. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango in relationships. If I was brutally honest with myself, once everything was out in the open, I had to see where I was wrong, too. So He led me through all that.
Next came something interesting. I was convicted by the scripture:
"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother." (Matthew 18:15)
In other words, if you have a beef with someone, it is your responsibility to go to that person and get it straightened out.
So in some cases where you want to forgive someone, that is the correct thing to do. Work it out between the two of you. But what if the person is dead...or an abuser where it would put you in danger if you went to the person. What if it is a coworker where it would cause problems in your office if you did that, or you were a victim of a crime, or you are bitter because a crime was perpetrated on someone that you love? What then?
Sometimes you need to confront someone, and it is impossible to do so. But I think you still need to follow the principle...you need to confront the person that harmed you. It is important for your healing, or God wouldn't tell you to do it. So how?
What worked for me was to pick a time when I could be totally alone. Took the ringer off the phone, put the dogs in another room, made sure I wouldn't be disturbed. Got a box of Kleenex. I pulled up a chair across from me, and visualized that person in the chair. (If you have a picture of the person, put that in the chair).
I know this sounds nuts, but stay with me. You might want to try this.
Visualize that you are talking to this person, and tell them how they hurt you. The repercussions of it. The pain. How it affected your life. Get it all out, every bit of it. Talk to that chair as if you were talking to that person.
Once out, if you had a part in it, confess that. If there was anything positive that the person did for you, tell them that.
Then when you come to the end, tell that person that with God's help, you CHOOSE to forgive them.
So I went through all that.
And then, the miracle.
Slowly, over months, my heart began to form a scab. The pain slowly began to leave. The bubble of bitterness began to leak. And eventually, I was able to say that I had forgiven that person. I no longer hurt, I was no longer bitter. I had moved on.
I think the whole process took over a year. And I was led the whole way by the Holy Spirit.
I did this blog because none of us get out of this world unscathed, and we need to work on these things honestly with God. Things that hold us back. This was how He worked with me. He may send you through a different process, or He may heal you all at once.
I don't know how He will do it, but I know that He will, if you will let Him.
It was a hard process to go through, but at the end of it is...
Peace.