I was particularly drawn to this subject because of the problem I’ve had in my life when it comes to forgiveness and anger.
I had a seething anger that dominated my thinking and affected everything for 52 years of my 63 years of life. When I chose to finally address it (by the way it was a problem with my grandmother who had preached hell, fire, and damnation and was totally anal when it came to anything that didn’t fit within her scope of thinking from her spiritual point of view. She had been extremely judgmental and required us to follow her ideas or never hear the end of it. When I was a child, she would come into our home, requiring my mother to leave the room when she wanted to speak to my father. She would rant and rave to us if we had on shorts, or lipstick, and tell us we were going to go to hell, etc., ad nauseum. Being the adamant, outspoken upstart that I was, I would cringe with anger and inwardly want to beat the crap out of her.)
These feelings, as I mentioned pervaded my subconscious thoughts, and I think I acted them out toward other people, rather than my grandmother, for most of my life.
Why? ‘Cause I was taught NOT to be disrespectful to my elders when I was a child, so certainly I couldn’t say a word in my growing-up home life. I moved away from my hometown and lived far away for years until I was 52. Then I moved back to my hometown area at that time. Consequently I was in closer proximity to her (I called her the battle-axe).
Long story, hopefully a little shorter now:
One day I purposely decided to go see my grandmother. My husband and daughter and I went and picked her up from a group home and took her for a picnic. I had determined I was going to address that old lady right then and there and give her a piece of my mind. (Obviously, she had already possessed a piece of my mind for all those years, ’cause I had allowed her to.) LOL
Lo and behold, as I talked to her, it hit me like a ton of bricks as I listened to her side of the story (after having told her how I had hated her all those years).
I allowed myself to try to see her point of view from her. As I listened, I realized she actually had had a horrible life herself.
Something inside of me snapped into place during that time with her. God worked a miracle inside of me, and I was able to actually love her and forgive her.
You see, anger had eaten me alive.
Unforgiveness had done the same. In those moments, I realized that “unforgiveness” and turning from anger is actually more detrimental to the one who holds onto those feelings, not the one those feelings are related to.
I realized we have choices. We can either give those thoughts and feelings over to God and let Him be in charge, or we can go our own way full of anger and unforgiveness and let it gnaw away at us like a cancer.
I hope if you relate to this story, you’ll feel free to share it with me.
Sharon
sharin His love 