Forgiveness is Yucky
Forgiveness can be a yucky process. However, it is a part of your deliverance.
When someone close hurts you, it honestly sucks. Whether that hurt is in the form of cheating, lying, slandering your name or saying something inappropriate – it just hurts.
Forgiveness has two key components: confrontation and acceptance.
Confrontation
The key to confronting people that hurt you is to be slow to speak and quick to listen.
Listening patiently to the details of their side of the story is essential.
I am not saying that their side will be clear to you. However, if the goal really is closure and reconciliation, then we owe it to those that hurt us to at least hear them out.
When someone offends or hurts you, it’s best to approach that individual immediately (Matthew 18:15).
Don’t wait allowing time to create details in your mind of how things occurred or should’ve occurred.
If you’re going to wait years before you approach them and still interact with them in your circle of friends, you might as well just let it go or let them go. People are allowed to evolve over the years and the harboring of your frustration towards them doesn’t help. I say this because over the years I’ve had to prune certain friendships because these relationships still treated me the way I behaved 10 years ago.
What I identified with a decade ago, no matter how much I evolved, was never enough for them. I decided to let them go and move on.
Acceptance
Now that you have heard the person out, it’s time to choose between acceptance to continue the friendship or acceptance and moving on.
Yes, I do believe that those two options exist. It’s possible to pray for people you love from afar. You can accept what they did, and you should choose to forgive because it’s what helps you. However, forgiveness doesn’t always equate to keeping those people around.
There are so many things that we all need to work. Whether it’s our maturity, gossiping nature, over drinking, etc. — you can certainly decide to grow with them or choose to allow that evolution to happen without you. From experience, I can tell you that my controlling nature took a very long time to evolve as did my gossiping spirit. I’m just being honest.
You must decide if you accept that person for their mistakes and continue fellowshipping with them or you accept that person for their mistakes and decide to love from afar.
What you must not do is keep it all bottled inside and not forgive. Not forgiving someone creates portals in your life for negative emotions to reside in. Eventually these negative emotions will turn into negative things affecting your life.
Trust me. Forgive and move forward together or forgive and move on.
Be sober of the mind, have grace for their mistakes, and have compassion to let it go.
Then do what is required —move on.
Karina Daves is passionate about being there for women, specifically moms, that need tools and confidence to keep going, no matter where they are in life. She provides moms with the tricks and tools that they need to maintain their sanity and achieve their best life and relationship GOALS! She's excited to be here for you! Check her out at https://www.karinafdaves.com/