I thought of writing this post for a while now and I had convinced myself that I would not write it. Until the other day, when having fellowship with a couple of friends and 99% of us shared how we have held on to unforgiveness and just to add on top,that same day, we had a function and a lady pulled me aside and shared with me how her baby daddy abandoned her and she had a lot of unforgiveness in her for along time until she decided to let go.
Allow me to get real with you and share my journey....
My dad passed away when I was 10 years old.....this changed a lot for us.. we were now the three of us..my mother..my big brother and me....for me death was not really a concept that I thought of at such a young age so it was never really hard for me as it was for my mother and brother.
It was not as hard until......I noticed that we no longer had visitors at home...I mean we used to host people every weekend when my dad was around....it got harder when I noticed that my relatives stopped coming over....and suddenly it became HARD, that is when it hit me that him passing away meant that we were ALL ALONE...
It got harder when I got older and I was told of how my mother's name never appeared in the obituaries because my relatives deliberately removed it because they never liked the fact that my father married outside their tribe.... I was told of how they tried to remove my mother from his will..I thank God they did not manage to.....
Years passed and I would meet my relatives once a year and exchange pleasantries and fake a smile....They would ask how mother was and all I wanted to tell them was..."why on earth would you want to know?" but I would just smile and say she is fine and she passed her greetings...
.....
15 years later....I am going through a mentorship program and the instructor tells us to write some sort of a time line for our lives...sharing both the good and bad times and to reflect and see how the events have shaped the person that you are today...so as he goes round he notices a piece of paper from my timeline written..."shunned by my relatives" ....he looks at me and says I should meet him for counseling...all that time am thinking "counselling for what? I am fine" so I never met him after....
A few months later....I am talking to God about something I want to do ....and I hear a voice say "you need to let go of the unforgiveness in your heart" ..."what unforgiveness?" ....."you need to forgive your relatives".....I pause and think to myself...."but I have".......then I flashback to when my aunt wrote to me on Facebook that she loved me...and I remembered the feeling of disgust I got and thought to myself "yeah right"...this is when it hit me that I have never forgiven them 15 years later....sounds crazy right???
I have sat down listening to sermons about forgiveness and I really never though that the message was for me...so I would switch off during these sermons.....
God had to reveal this for me...because on my own I do not see my flaws.....but He does....
I decided that I will tell them in one week's time when I see them that I have forgiven them and release myself from this burden....I really do not know what will happen next....I cannot really say that now I can hug and kiss them..but am trusting God to get there...
I do not know your story...maybe its your dad....your mum...brother...sister...friend...relative...a stranger...who hurt you so bad...that you cannot imagine ever moving from that point of hurt and forgiving them......
My prayer for you today is that you will allow God to take you through that journey...to allow God to heal those wounds and to allow Him to teach you how to forgive after all...He showed us what it means to forgive because He says in His word...that HE WILL REMEMBER OUR SINS NO MORE......HE REQUIRES OF US TO FORGIVE OTHERS JUST LIKE HE FORGAVE US.....
He never asks us to do something that will not be of good for our lives...so today I will ask you to say this prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, I have been hurt by (say name) and I do not want to forgive them....but today Lord I ask you to heal me and help me to forgive (say name). I am ready Lord to allow you to teach me how to forgive so that I may do your will and so that I may die so that you may live. AMEN
