Forgive Yourself

Choose, every day to forgive yourself. You are human, flawed and most of all worthy of love - Alison Malee

Forgiving is not easy. There are the little things we need to forgive. Someone stepped on your toe. You were cut off in traffic. Your order was up at Dunkin Donuts and someone else strolls right up and steals it in your face. Yes, that happened to me. Haha. But I did forgive them. Forgetting is another story. It’s easier to forgive the little things. Sometimes we are able to do it in minutes, days or months. Sometimes we just end up forgetting about the whole incident completely.

Forgiving the big things however is the real challenge. Those are the ones that hit us to our core. For example, breaking our trust. If someone broke your vase, they should pay for it or try to fix it, right? So, if someone breaks our trust or breaks your heart, they should have to pay for it or fix it! Or at least go to jail and pay for their crime. But no. They are just walking down the street living their life as free as anything. That was my logic. However, the thing about forgiveness is that it's not for their sake. It’s for our sake. Holding on to that anger is like drinking poison. It kills us slowly and barely affects them. But going through the process of forgiving them is the healing journey we have talked about. Letting it all go and letting God take over.

But here’s something that I did not consider on my journey of healing that became a roadblock in my path. Forgiving myself.  Do you find yourself ever upset with the choices you made? Maybe it’s the things you allowed to happen and now you feel like you were stupid or ignorant or naïve? Or maybe you actually hurt someone yourself and believe you are deserving of this pain. You do not deserve this pain. That belief leads to self-punishment which is cruel and unfair. You start believing you deserve all the bad things happening and more. Sometimes you even go looking for them.

First of all, who are you to be in charge of your own punishment?

God is not interested in doing that. So why are you torturing yourself. You may find this hard to believe but you deserve one thing only and its love. When Jesus was dying on the cross, the criminal next to him asked for forgiveness and got to go to heaven immediately. So you feel you messed up. So you feel you were wrong. Whatever it is, you should not be the judge of it. Second, you need to forgive yourself. 

Carrying that burden is only going to make you tired and keep you down. You deserve love and don’t try to fight this statement. It’s true. If the person who wronged you gets to receive forgiveness then you absolutely deserve it for yourself. So let it go. Leave that burden behind. It no longer belongs to you.