“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

Colossians 3:13 NLT.

If you hold a grudge and refuse to forgive someone for the way they treated you, the way they hurt you (intentional or not), you’re allowing the pain to fester. When you forgive someone, you’re not saying what happened was ok. You’re not shrugging it off, allowing the person to do it again. You’re simply moving forward with peace in your heart.

Of course, forgiving someone can be hard. It may seem easier to keep the anger and the pain bottled up, to turn away from it when you don’t want to think about it. It’s easier to keep it buried in the dark recesses of your mind, bringing it out only when you want a reason to act a certain way or to avoid someone or a situation. You find a way to manage and use your anger until the pain creeps out on its own and hurts you all over again.

Facing the situation, the memory of someone that hurt you, can be extremely painful. But when you face it, you can hand it over to God. You can admit that you need His help to stop it from burrowing further into your heart and forming bitter roots – those that can become embedded, forming chains that imprison you in the pain you’re trying to forget.

Ask God to help you, and He will. He knows more about the situation than you do. He sees everything, including the hearts of all involved. Trust Him. He knows. Let Him take it from you – all of it. If you choose to hold onto it, it will keep hurting you.

God wants more for you than watching the rerun of the moment over and over in your thoughts. He wants you to move past the pain that holds you back and keeps you down. He offers you FREEDOM from all of that.

Take a deep breath, dear soul, and forgive. Maybe you need to say it directly to someone. Maybe not. But either way, you’ll experience such peace and, yes, such glorious freedom.

And you’ll be eternally blessed by your Heavenly Father, who not only forgives you when you ask Him, but He helps you to forgive and move forward when you call out to Him.

Faithfully. Every time.