On Forgiveness

I have so much anger lately that I knew that I needed to blog. I knelt tonight to pray and asked Heavenly Father what I needed to blog about. Forgiveness was the answer He gave me loud and clear. There was no hesitation or waiting for the answer. Forgiveness. Woo-wee! That is a subject that is hard for me to write about.

I have heard time and again that forgiveness is not about the person in need of our forgiveness but that it is for our own healing. What if the person in need of your forgiveness is yourself? I think this is where I stumble. I'm actually a pretty forgiving person, I've forgiven B. countless times and continue to work on that. When it comes down to myself though, I have a hard time forgiving. I beat myself up with past transgressions and mistakes over and over again. I remind myself of some of them frequently. I shame myself with them. I relive them. I know that isn't what He wants, it's not what I want either. I just can't always seem to find the self-love and humility to fully forgive myself, learn and move on.

This in turn feeds my feelings of failure (read about that here) which then starts the circle over again. Vicious. Dang. Circle. Mistake - Self-Reproach-Lack of Forgiveness-Shame-Feelings of Failure-Mistake.  You see how that works? Satan knows how to get me to give in and how to make me feel worthless. He taunts me with my mistakes and I allow him to.

I haven't been self-reflective enough lately to realize this lack of forgiveness I have for myself. It is something I am going to have to work on turning over to God. In the meantime I am aware of it, that's progress.

Attempting forgiveness,

T,