Forgiving……..

We are all familiar with the old adage that says” Forgive him or her, not because they deserve it, but because you deserve peace” Right?
Forgiving yourself is essential. As humans, we all have the tendency to hold ourselves more accountable than we do others. Many of us can justify forgiving others, even for a heinous offense, yet find no justification for forgiving ourselves for an equal or lesser offense. Perhaps you believe that forgiving yourself is not even a consideration because you think you must hold yourself in a state of constant remembrance, lest you forget. Perhaps you believe there is a price, some form of life-long penance that you must pay.

When God forgives us, he remembers our sins no more….Jer 31:34″ This does not mean that our all-knowing Father God forgets, but rather, because He forgives us, He chooses not to bring up our sins anymore. We can choose to do the same for ourselves and to those that offends us.

I think, that to be able to forgive others, you have to first be able to forgive yourself. By this I mean that if you feel guilty about something, you have to be able to accept that you made a mistake, but you also have to then carry on and move forward. If you cannot forgive yourself, you will constantly berate yourself and you won’t be able to leave the past behind. Of course, you have to learn from the mistakes you made and endeavour never to repeat them, you can not continue to beat yourself over something that happened and you can not change. “We do know that something’s can’t be changed?

Often, we are the last people to forgive ourselves. In my opinion, once you realise that you have spent enough time making yourself feel bad about something you have done, it becomes clear that quite often, others have long since forgiven you.

Forgiving doesn’t always mean you have  to trust the person to the same extent as before and even if it is, trust is something which has to be earned back….It simply means setting yourself free”…..