Draft of The Book The Bitch in the House

The Bitch in the House....hmmm interesting reading by many, many different writers...over the next week I am going to kind of extract what interested me the most and what I would like to share...

This book is divided into four sections (two of which I have already read) What I thought this book was going to be has turned out quite differently...I thought it was one big book with women bitching about How we are right and the men are wrong....a big ol' feminist yowl of I am woman, hear me ROAR! However it has turned on me - the book is about understanding us - understanding why we are the way we are and how these woman have worked through all the bitchiness and moved forward....so I want to share that with you...

E.S. Maduro is the first writer to expose her feelings on being married and she has an interesting take on it - she talks about how we want it all - we want all things to be equal in our household EXCEPT (yes there is an exception) we want it all done OUR WAY! SURPRISE! Then when it isnt done our way, you know the right way, we can then go back and do it and bitch the entire time about it...tsk, tsk, Ladies we absolutely SUCK!

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?