Forgiveness is not for the Weak...

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. Eric Hoffer

These words have had a huge impact on me this week. I have had to really grapple with forgiveness and understanding on such another level. I searched within and outside of myself trying to figure out what exactly did it mean to forgive? Did I forgive the act but not the person? Or did I forgive the person and dismiss the act? Is doing one dismissing the other? By forgiving was I condoning and justifying something I believed to be morally wrong just to end the turmoil I found myself in? 

 Needless to say it has been a hard week and I ended up spending alot of time alone and thinking and then found the road to forgiveness at Church - I prayed for a sign and at the end of the service there was my sign the letters "IT is Done" (referring to the resurrection of Christ signaling that the pain was over) and there it was in big black and white letters and I cried, I cried because he had set me free from the pain I was carrying - he took that from me and let me know it was okay to be free of it... I then came across this quote (above) and saw it even more clearer - perhaps the reason I found it so hard to forgive someone else is because I had not yet forgiven me (no matter how small the part) - We do love those as we love ourselves and this may be why we have such high expectations (because we have them for ourselves) - we hate those things in others that we cannot stomach within ourselves - we forgive others when we forgive ourselves...

Can you forgive yourself and then offer that to another?

The Shack - Might be the best read of 2013 for me!

"Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.” ― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

I have yet to be touched by a book since The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans. The very statement I start this blog with really encompasses what this book is about. It draws you in with its story of pain and keeps you holding on for the way it touches you not only mentally but spiritually. At some point in our lives (those who believe in this God of mine), blame him for the tradgedies we have endured, blamed him for not being next to us in our most trying times and curse him for not leading us to something better than where we are. But as this statement above reads ~ God does not create tragedies for us to arise from he creates goodness from those tragedies that unfortuantely not all of us appreciate or truly see.

“Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms - what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe.” ― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

This excerpt from the book makes a power statment "Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe." I do believe we forget this as we live and grow and move --- our minds and hearts and souls need to be open enough to reexamine and revisit those things to become closer to our spiritual selves. ---- I cannot say enough about the things this book has caused me to contemplate - our judgement upon others for what we perceive are their failings, the perception of God and spirituality, the expectations we put on one another to have some semblance of order? We label to make the world make sense to us just so we can then disassemble and break down what we claim to build? "Love is merely the skin of knowing" William Young ~ The Shack