Forgive for you...you deserve peace

Recently I have found a recurring theme in the discussions I've had with friends and others around their situations, their pain, their frustration.  I am the first to admit I still have my days. But given where I've been and where I am now, I must be doing something right.  

Funny when I say forgiveness is the secret, it seems almost laughable. I would have agreed until I learned that it really can be freeing.  Many years ago, as a young girl, I experienced hurt by a family member that I could not understand, not could I accept.  I spent most of my teens angry at this family member.  I wanted an apology. After 4 years of waiting and finally some time with a therapist, it hurt even worse when my therapist suggested "you are waiting for an apology that you're never going to get..." . I thought that was ridiculous. It hurt even more to realize the therapist was probably right.

I sat in the pain of the revelation, and sure enough, my body and mind grew sick and tired of feeling it, and I surrendered. I reached out and reconnected with this person who had been estranged from my life.  I made the decision to forgive them in my heart and mind. We moved forward. For years we enjoyed our connection although we both remained sensitive to the subject of the past.  It took me close to 10 years to forgive wholeheartedly. When I did, I learned to love that person again.  We built a new relationship and that person became my best friend.  7 years later...that apology came...unexpectedly and no longer necessary, it took the breath right out of me.  It meant the world.  But in the meantime I'd been able to enjoy 7 years of peace as I had long prior forgiven.

Little did I know that very same lesson would continue to test me in life.  With Jason, ,u first love who'd had a child with someone else, and then Chris, whom I could never understand and would not let me in.  Sometimes the best gift we can give ourselves in these painful situations is the freedom of forgiveness.  Holding on to hurt, anger and resentment does not punish the person we hold it for...they may not even realize or they may not care... It hurts you.  So...forgive not because they deserve it, but because you don't deserve to carry the weight or the pain.  Let it go..you may have to do it over and over,  but I promise one day it will be gone, and replaced by something much better. Make space in your heart...

"Sometimes the hardest apology to accept is the one you never got"