The Other “F” Word
“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.”
Proverbs 17:9
So, there’s another word out there that begins with the letter F that holds just as much weight, if not more than that other four-letter F word. I’m talking about “Forgiveness”. I know, it ain’t a sexy word and I probably lost about a quarter of you when I said it. Forgiveness is a powerful word because it’s an actionable word, but more than that, it’s a choice. That’s right I said it, forgiveness doesn’t happen automatically or over a course of time, you actually have to choose to forgive a person. Easier said than done right? Well, let’s discuss how we can make it easier.
When someone or people wrong us, our reflexive emotion is usually anger or hurt. Depending on the depth of the wrong can also determine the depth of our emotion and how long we decide to hold onto it. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel some kind of way when someone offends you or wrongs you. God gave us emotions for a reason, so of course, those emotions are going to be ignited when we experience bad or good things. But after you’ve sat with your feelings for a while, and after an apology has been given, are you still holding that pain, anger, resentment, etc.? See, it’s holding the emotion for too long that puts us on the path to becoming bitter individuals. We become indignant, judgmental, prideful, and even vengeful. That person or group of people hurt us, so now we’re going to lock them up in an invisible prison and never let them out, and many of us, whether we want to admit it or believe it, take pleasure holding people’s trespasses against them.
But what about our trespasses? What about the hurt and anger we caused others either intentionally or unintentionally? Truth be told, we should be chained up in someone’s prison ourselves. No matter how nice, how Christian, how good, how old, or how whatever we are, we have wronged or offended someone at some point in our lives.
And dare I say, some of us have wronged ourselves and are holding ourselves in prison so we can’t do anything, or go anywhere in life.
Read what I’m saying carefully, you have to let her, let him, let them, or let yourself go.
L.I.G. (Let It Go)
So, how do we “let it go”, or how do we forgive? The simplest answer I have is to remember someone forgave you. As I just pointed out, none of us are exempt from wronging or offending others and we’ve all done it. Just think, how we would feel or how we feel when our spouse, supervisor, or child can’t forgive us for something we’ve done even though we’ve apologized a million times, even though it’s been one or six months since we’ve committed the “crime”. How does it feel that they continue to hold our wrongdoings against us and treat us unkindly even when we’re trying to show kindness to them? It doesn’t feel good right? So, why do we think it’s okay to treat others the way we don’t like to be treated?
And let me go a little deeper here and pose this question, where would any of us be if God chose to not forgive us for the numerous times we’ve messed up? And don’t think that just because He’s a loving God that He can’t hold our transgressions against us, it’s because He is a loving God that he chooses not to hold them against us; it’s called grace and we need to extend it to each other far more than we do.
Look the bottom line is this, choosing to not forgive others is more detrimental for us than it is for them. Alan Brandt once said, “Being resentful is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die”. See, while we’re holding on to our feelings of resentment, anger, hurt, etc. the other person is living their life…freely. It may hurt that we’re no longer in his or her life, but time has not stood still. Furthermore, if we dissect the quote more, it implies that we’re harming ourselves when we choose to hold a grudge or not forgive. Poison kills, whether it kills slowly or quickly; we eventually die. In this case, unforgiveness is a slow killer; it kills our joy, happiness, spirit, trust, and prevents us from receiving God’s blessings because our hearts and hands are closed.
Unforgiveness can also cause us to become physically sick because it acts as a stressor in our body. And I’m not just making this scientific fact up, I’m speaking from experience. I hated someone so much for hurting me that whenever I was in his presence or heard his voice, I literally became nauseous. Although he apologized repeatedly, I refused to forgive him and continued mistreating him. I’m not going to lie, it felt good to hear him beg for forgiveness, I felt powerful and in control. But eventually, he grew tired of begging and went on to live his life.
Look, I get it. There are some wrongs that you’ve personally experienced, and some wrongs in life in general that seem unforgivable. And I know Pain and Anger may seem like they’re your BFFs because they’ve been “holding you down”, but that’s the problem, they’ve been holding you down. Those emotions/friends have been subtracting from your life, not adding to it. And if you don’t let them go, you’re going to physically find yourself by yourself.
This is not meant to be a lecture, I just really want you to live your best life, and unfortunately, that can’t happen if your heart is broken and you choose to not have surgery.
Until we speak again…smooches 
Think on This: Is there someone you’re holding? It may be time for you to let him or her go so you can experience true freedom.
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