Learning to Walk in Daily Forgiveness

        As a young girl, my parents taught me and all my siblings (when I say all I mean 9) to say our bedtime prayers each evening before bed. A part of that prayer was to always ask Jesus to forgive our sins. I remember that I said it so often it became a ritual with little meaning-on top of that I don’t remember being asked to be specific about whether I had really done anything to sin that day. I guess my parents just assumed that since we were kids, we would sin every day! I definitely had it ingrained in my mind that I was a sinner, and I’d better repent each day, or else, the else was I’d possibly go to hell if I forgot. I was very scared of that.

Now, as a much older grown woman, and even able to call myself a grandma 6 times, I no longer say those ritual prayers and I also no longer only see myself as someone who has sinned or sins, but now I can say with much inner work and spiritual healing that I am a daughter of God, and deeply loved and cherished by my Heavenly Father. It wasn’t easy to get to this place, to sense God’s grace and love instead of the harsh God I was raised with. It’s been a journey over the years in my spiritual walk to fully recognize His love in my life and I still remind myself of this on a regular basis.

Recently, the Lord has been having me circle back to this daily ritual, but in a new way. I’ve had some health issues in the last few years which have caused me to reflect, do research and make significant changes to my diet and lifestyle. I’ve created better boundaries for myself to lower stress and increase homeostasis and taken more time to eat healthy. As part of this work, I recognized in a greater way that harboring negative emotions can also impact a person’s physical health and probably way more than any of us realize. So, this last summer, everything that I’ve been reading or listening to has somehow brought up this topic to forgive people in my life who have hurt me. The list I created even included people from years ago, ones I’ve forgotten, but the unforgiveness was still buried deep within. I decided to do this great healing work of purging all this resentment and to forgive each person from the past. I was surprised how many names came up. From this work, the question came to my mind-How would my life change if I developed the habit of daily forgiveness? Not in some rote way as I grew up, but in a living, breathing, vibrant way of recognizing when an arrow pierced me or even if there were pings that impacted me from rude comments or hurtful things others might say or do that affected me. Would this help me not only emotionally, but also physically?

So, thus the challenge began. It started out okay, and I really thought I had the hang of it over several weeks, as I truly began to feel lighter and more joyful.  Each morning, I would think about the previous day and decide if I had harbored any negative feelings from interactions and events the prior day. If I had, I would immediately forgive. This is very cool I thought. I’m getting the hang of this habit; I think I’ve got this down. But then I got whammed!! A very rude comment that came unexpectedly at a family gathering I traveled to attend. What??? Really??? How rude I thought- a bit in shock. I pushed it aside initially, but after coming home from the trip and back to my daily life, the anger, the bitterness and resentment started brewing. I began to repeat this in my head over and over. So much for that new habit I had developed of practicing daily forgiveness; it just flew out the window as soon as something tough got thrown at me. So much for the spiritual muscle I had been developing. That muscle went limp awfully quick, nearly flat as a pancake. I thought I was stronger than this… So, here I am writing this blog. Pondering this event and how I lost my good feelings of “letting go” on a regular basis and walking in daily forgiveness. So much freedom and joy down the drain in a few minutes. Am I really going to lose my joy over this person’s rudeness? Am I going to let myself focus on this negative event over all the other wonderful positive interactions I had that weekend?

It comes down to a choice. It’s a decision to get back on the path I was on. To stay salty in the saltless places; to shine my light in the murky places. To get that bounce back in my step. To decide not to hold that comment against that person any longer. I will stop replaying this in my mind over and over. I will stop being a victim of that comment or negative behavior I experienced. This is not in my hula hoop, that comment from that person can stay in their hula hoop. That decision to “let go” of that anger and forgive that person brought a lightness and spring to my step today. It certainly wasn’t easy, but so worth it. I’m back on the path. So, how about you? Ready to take the plunge? Or shall I say, ready to take the step on the path of daily forgiveness? Let’s do this.