Thoughts on Forgiveness

 My name is Whitney Hardie and I approve this message.

I do not, however, approve of late night photo shoots using house lamps for lighting.

At church, Joe and I attend the marriage and family relations class during the Sunday School hour.  The lesson this week was about forgiveness (can I get an amen for how vital forgiveness is to marriage?)  I had a thought about forgiveness and marriage.  But with Joe out of town I was flying solo, and thus spent most of the meeting wrangling Ellie in the hallway.

So I never got to share my thought.

Want to know what it is?  OK, here goes:

In my life, the ability to forgive someone has much more to do with my relationship with the Lord than it has to do with the person I'm trying to forgive.  For example, let's say that Joe does something that upsets, offends, or hurts my feelings.  Then he apologizes.  There is a part of me (the natural man) that wants to hold a grudge, wants to withhold forgiveness.

"My feelings were hurt," I might say, "He doesn't really seem sorry enough yet.  I think he needs to suffer a little more." These kinds of thoughts are toxic to any relationship.  When I find myself following this pattern I know that I am the one that needs to change.  I might offer a prayer.  Something along the lines of "Father, I'm hurt and I'm tempted to hurt someone back.  Please fill my heart with love and understanding.  Please help me to be healed and to become more like Thy Son.  Please help me to forgive."  When I take it to the Lord, it's amazing how quickly I can let something go.  The hard part is just remembering to humble myself enough to do so.

If you cannot see a way to forgive someone, pray about it and the Savior will show you how it is possible.  He suffered for everything already, we don't need to make each other suffer more.

And speaking of forgiveness, here is a man familiar with the process.  This story gets  me every time.


I know I don't usually wax religious on this blog, but it's my blog so today I did.  Amen.