Forgiveness

We've had a lot of talks at church lately about forgiveness, and one of the questions is how would you rate yourself? That got me thinking.

My first thought was that I was pretty good, but then i realised i had a lot to work on (as usuall)

There aren't actually many people that have done badly by me, so i'm not actually that practiced in the art of forgiveness, but there are two circumstances that come to mind, neither of which you will find out the details of incase people involved end up reading this.

The upshot of it is this though - neither of these situations were deliberatly set up to hurt me. In fact, i don't even think the people realised that they had. They are people I love, and i'm pretty sure they love me too. And even though i understand the reasons for their actions, they have caused me hurt.

This is where i get confused, I hold no hard feelings towards the people, does this mean I've forgiven them? I still hold on to the hurt though, so maybe I haven't. I need to learn how to move on from hurt, and not hold on to it and nurture it. I'm still working on this one, which explains why this entry is probably a bit hard to read.

The other situation in which I am HOPELESS at forgiveness is when it involves me. i blame myself for everything!! And I hold on to that list and feed it and give it attention and now it is a big ball of self blame and guilt. Not sure how to get rid of it, it seems quite attached. My husband gets sick of me saying i'm sorry for things he thinks i'm not even responsible for, and i've been known to apologise to people and have them look blankly at me and ask me what i'm talking about!

hmmm, needs more thought.