I have been hurt, a lot, and badly. I have thought that all was forgiven, after all, I am a Christian and profess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior; so the proper thing to do is to forgive someone and go on with your life. The problem is, have I (you) really forgiven that person? Do I (you) keep bringing it up and rehashing the wrong? Do I (you) let it eat away at my (your) very soul day after day, or have I (you) truly forgiven the one who did the hurting.
You know, we have always been told to forgive and forget. It is easy to give lip service to that and say we have forgiven someone, and take the hurtful thing that was done and put it on the shelf somewhere and close the door. Then an earthquake comes, maybe just a slight tremor, something that just causes things to shift ever so slightly in that cabinet. To use a recent story a friend of mine posted, it is like putting your phone (a flip phone works best with this analogy) on a shelf, but not turning it off. Someone is trying to reach you, so they call you. The phone just vibrates and vibrates, next thing you know, it has vibrated off the shelf and the phone flips open and the person on the other line thinks you have answered, but you really aren't there!
Our hurts are like that; the devil is like that. They keep coming up and the hurts keep calling you. You can't just put things up and forget about them. You can't even turn it off b/c something is always there to remind you..It is like some phones that will turn themselves on if you have an alarm or timer set. You have to deal with them, take their life away, take out the battery.
In dealing with hurts, you have to take the life out of it by going to the one true source of peace, Jesus. Psalm 71:20 says "though you have made me see my troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.
Through studying and praying over this lesson this week, I realized that there are several things in which true forgiveness has not been given. I still blame the one who did the hurt; I can't seem to let it go, no matter how hard I try. No matter that I have been praying over this situation countless times, the question remains, have I really given my heart over to God to allow me to forgive that person and have I truly given my heart over to allow God to do the healing and restoring that His Word have promised us?
