Beloved friends and family,
One of the most recent lessons I learned surprisingly came through a movie The Light Between Oceans. It is a rare thing these days to finish a movie and actually feel challenged to see if you are living like Jesus. The message of this movie was quite simple. However, as my husband, my confidante and my best friend has often said, that just because an idea is simple does not guarantee that completing it is easy.
The message is: the act of true forgiveness is singular in nature, but holding grudges, hatred and resentment can be continuous. When I choose with all my heart to forgive, it is most often a single act and is over with God's help and results in a life that becomes fuller of happiness and joy. When I choose to stay angry, hurt and resentful, it takes considerably more emotional, physical and spiritual energy to keep rehashing the cause of the betrayal or pain. The hardest thing, by far, is that I end up withdrawn, isolated, lonely, and I miss out on the beauty of God's world. I also miss out on the love and joy that I am so lucky to be blessed with daily through Christ. It's amazing. All of this love, joy and beauty is lost because I refuse to let go. And the rehashing causes me more loneliness because I become afraid to be hurt again
No wonder I wholeheartedly and absolutely grabbed onto this lesson. Not only did it remind me of Christ's choice through His sacrifice in which He forgave ALL of my sins; past, present and future, but I was also reminded of the verse Eph. 4:32 "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you". As I let walls grow due to my lack of the choice to forgive others, I was becoming lost in isolation, depression and lack of fellowship.
Because I have made the choice to forgive people as I have been unconditionally forgiven, my joy in this life is being restored along with my spiritual healing, but most importantly, my relationship with Yahweh, is restored and growing once again. And as Phil.4:13 states, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Through Christ, I find it easier to be kind, tender-hearted and to show grace. But most of all, through Christ and His example I can to live a life of forgiveness. And most of all, I choose to love God first and then love others. What incredible joy is being restored through following the example of Christ.
As I finish up this blog today, I am so thankful that God helped me realized that being resentful and isolated has been sapping all the energy that I need for the physical healing of my autoimmune diseases, but it also has been sapping the energy I need for my emotional and spiritual healing as well.
How incredible it has been to once again be aware of and experience the beauty, the joy and the incredible love that those around me have been so generously giving. The final lesson is that how can I possibly see how the absolute gift that each day brings if all I focus on is the negative? Life is an amazing gift. I want to eek all the beauty out of each precious relationship and the gift of each day whether my life ends tomorrow or 30 years from now.
There are no adequate words of the depth of my love for my Lord and my God. Forgiveness is a choice and I choose to use it. Life is a gift, and I choose to live it. The people in my life are gifts, and I choose to treasure them. Jesus is the most incredible gift of all, and it is priceless. I can tell you that many of the resentments I have been holding onto, I am choosing through the strength of Christ, to forgive. And to my Lord and Savior, as I gave my life to you when I was 9 years old, it is still humbly and completely yours. I am looking forward to the next lesson you have.
Only through His grace,
Diane