Blossom Blog

Today, September 1st is National forgiveness day. I have been a part of an awesome community for almost a year now. One of the main precepts of this community is forgiveness. Not because it’s easy, not because it’s deserved, not because it’s asked for but for the beautiful freedom that it gives once given.

Forgiveness is something I have had to get aquatinted and friendly with. I know about being forgiven. I was raised from birth in a Christian home. God’s grace and mercy has been shown greatly to me, forgiving me of all my transgressions. However, me extending that same grace and mercy to others wasn’t something I saw as ever being needed. I never looked at any negative act that was done toward me as needing to be forgiven. It was always fine, no problem, and ok.

While this is a very warped way of thinking it was totally subconscious. Until recently I truly didn’t see the reality of what I was believing about myself. As the saying goes when the student is ready the teacher will appear and boy did it make a grand entrance! Over the past couple of years I have been given some very challenging opportunities to forgive!

While working through the process of forgiveness, it became clear that I had never forgiven anyone. It is true. During one of the modules that I was working on in a course, I was asked to think of a time in my past when I forgave someone. I thought…nothing came to mind. I thought and thought some more and I couldn’t recall one time that I had extended forgiveness. WTF!!! I was shocked! It felt like a punch in the gut.

Immediately memories started flooding my mind and it became apparent that there were so many times in my past that I needed to forgive others. It also became apparent that the reason I hadn’t was a belief that I didn’t deserve to be treated any better. There wasn’t any grievance done toward me that I saw as a problem. I didn’t see other’s behavior as needing to be forgiven. My only response to a grievance would be, no problem, it’s ok, or I’m fine. What I was really saying was, please don’t feel sorry on my account, I’m. not. worth. it.

And there it was, unworthiness…It had snuck in the backdoor!

At nearly 60 years old I had never considered this belief. I became face to face with a realization that if I was going to be able to move forward through the challenges I was facing, I needed to experience true forgiveness. Not only receiving forgiveness but more importantly, extending forgiveness. This would require practicing compassion toward myself, releasing shame and seeing myself worthy…worthy enough to give forgiveness.

Recently I have come to understand that pain is unavoidable in this life. It is part of the human experience and beyond our control but suffering is a choice and well within our control. While pain will break your heart, suffering will break your soul allowing for resentment and bitterness to germinate, take deep root destroying the beautiful joy that we are meant to dwell. The remedy for it….forgiveness.

Forgiveness can only exist where there is radical compassion and understanding and its opposite is not unforgiveness, but unwillingness birthed from fear. My journey to forgiveness continues and I have only been asked for my willingness. It has not been quick, easy, and certainly not pretty but I try to make a daily decision and intentionally choose forgiveness everyday.

While I would have never asked for the challenges I have had to face, they have allowed the layers of my truth to unfold and have brought so much growth and freedom that only comes from giving and receiving forgiveness.