this post is completely non photography related. but totally cristina related. i spent most of the day today with some of my incredibly wonderful friends. i truly consider my friends to be some of God’s greatest gifts in my life. they give me a hand when i’m down, they encourage me to move forward towards my goals, and lovingly correct me when i’m making poor choices. “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” proverbs 27:17
at times, i don’t want to be sharpened. i would love to stay in my happy complacent dull state. but somehow God always shows up and brings me just the friend to sharpen me. my friends and i had deep conversations about life, hurts, mistakes, friendships, and relationships. it was deep. we all kind of briefly went around and shared with each other different people who had hurt us. and i instantly thought of a couple people who had hurt me so much that i still to this day have not forgiven. forgiveness…..is hard. real hard.
today, one of my friends (pictured below, helping me do a handstand in 1995
) reminded me of something that our college pastor, jim schettler, said during a message once.
he said, “forgiving is not forgetting, it’s remembering without hurting”. cause really, let’s keep it real, i don’t know about you but….i am NOT going to forget being hurt by someone. it’s not happening. and if you hurt one of my kids……that’s a whole nother level…..just don’t go there…..i will put an “X” on your forehead…just saying
like i said….i don’t do well with this forgiveness thing. and to keep it even more real…i don’t know how to start. how to start practicing not hurting. how do you separate the two, if they are so entwined and synonymous. and i know exactly what God has told me to do….”forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13″ so i don’t really know what I’m trying to say with this blog post other than i’m very thankful for the friends that God has gifted me with and that i need to learn how to remember without hurting, but i don’t know where to begin with that. feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments 😉
Cristina,
As I read your words, I too am thankful for the friends The Lord has surrounded you with. Really thankful. I also found it easy to identify with not knowing how to start…
The Lord has been working on my ability to forgive for what seems to be an entire lifetime. And He has brought me a long way from where I once was. It is to his everlasting glory that I have become an easy forgiver…in most cases. But there are still places in me where I have struggled with raw hurt. So raw that it has owned my thoughts and emotions for more years than I feel comfortable sharing. These are places where my fallenness and frailty are completely exposed and I am unable to excuse or explain away any of my internal responses. But these are also places where I am overcome with humility as I once again, take a taste of my unholy heart.
In this place, I am reminded that it is in my weakness that his strength and grace become most available.
A few months ago, I felt the burden; the physical weight of the bitterness I had been carrying around for years. On this particular day, The Lord helped me to see how desperate I truly was and how badly I needed to ask him for help.
I cried out to Him and came undone…”Lord, I am called to forgive…clearly, you call me to forgive. I want to please you, Lord. I want this to end. But I don’t know how. I confess that it has powered over me and darkenened my heart for years. Bitterness has swelled up within me at the mention of the person’s name. Even the few times I’ve remained quiet, when I’ve had the self-control to prevent my words from spewign out, my heart has felt so ugly.
“S.O.S., Lord!Please rescue me. Help me to let this go…I want my heart to please you.”
I wept and wept as my bitterness poured out like Niagra Falls.
I had forgotten about this until I read your post. But I remember rrecently realizing that now, whenever I hear the name, I still remember the wrongs. And I won’t be seeking this person out for close friendship. But I have also realized that this hasn’t been about them for a very long time. It turns out, this has been between me and my Savior.
I am not where I want to be…but I can say that my focus is no longer the other person. My focus in those private moments is now about the rescuer of my soul and my heart.
Thank you, Jesus…because while we were yet sinners, you died for us. You always know how to start.
I love you, Cristina. ❤️
And I’ll be praying, precious sister.
María
You never stop hurting…and to be honest, you can forgive someone but when you see them or hear their name, the painful memory will surface but it won’t be a painful hurt like it was before…once you really forgive them, the pain is more like a disturbance than a real pain that crushes n hurts you like it once did.