Forgiveness

Annie Henrie, Streams of Mercy, 2010, Found here

I am learning a lesson in forgiveness right now, a lesson that is oh, so hard. As a child, I thought I had mastered this skill because I could easily get over playground drama and childish arguments. But when you've given your best to someone and they don't even try to see past your shortcomings - that is when forgiveness becomes so much harder.

This journey feels like a roller coaster. I descend as I worry and stew and grow angry over the wrongs that have been done to me. At rock bottom, I realize that I need to do better, and ask for God's help. I've been amazed at how He helps me, lifts me higher, fills my heart with His understanding and His love.

But inevitably, I grow angry again. I used to think forgiveness was a one-time thing, but now I am discovering that it is a long and tiring struggle.

In those moments when I am down and weary, here are three things I turn to for the inspiration to turn my heart to God and try again to forgive.

1. This video

2. Rudyard Kipling's "If"

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools"

3. The words of Corrie Ten Boom

"It is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

 I hope that these can help you on your journeys of forgiveness as well as mine.

Words to Heal my Heart Today

"It's the little household crises that get to me. This time, my toddler’s favorite blanket was lost. In an effort to discourage her thumb-sucking, I’d hidden it. Bedtime had come and I couldn’t find the fuzzy pink thing. The memory lapses that come as a fringe benefit of my chronic illness had me opening kitchen cupboards and drawers as my daughter cried, 'Find it now, Mommy.' Her demand was a perfect parallel to my petitions to God: 'Fix me now, please.' Like my toddler, I sometimes want to throw myself on the floor and demand instant healing. I struggle to understand why it hasn’t come." 
-Rebecca Rice Birkin, "Instant Healing - Just Add Patience"


O thou that art the light of the minds that know thee,

the life of the souls that love thee,

and the strength of the wills that serve thee:

help us to know thee that truly love thee, 

and so to love thee that we might fully serve thee,

whom to serve is perfect freedom, 

Amen.

-St. Augustine of Hippo

"But God sees the truth, and waits." 

- Jes S. Curtis

One of my favorite poems

Sometimes life is busy, taxing, and difficult. Especially in the middle of the semester, in the middle of my college career when it is starting to get really cold outside. 


And when that happens, I turn to this poem to help me find "the Will which says to them, 'Hold on!'"

image found here.

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you 

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!