I Forgive You

I found this picture of myself when I was scrolling through deleting the millions of pictures my kids take on my phone when I’m busy doing something and not watching them. When I saw this picture, I looked at it and was like wait, what was I doing? Also, whichever kid took this did a pretty good job. Then I remembered, and what I was doing carries a lot of weight with it.
Long story short (who am I kidding, this probably won’t be short). I was writing a forgiveness note. I’ve been carrying a lot of anger around with me since my mom passed away, and it’s really been eating at me. My sister and I had someone close to us be very disrespectful to us not even 24 hours after our mom passed away (people do crazy things when people die). They said a lot of terrible things about people we love and it’s just been a lot to deal with. I was in such a shock that I couldn’t stand up for myself, for my husband or anyone else they were talking about. They took advantage of me at the most vulnerable state of my life, but portrayed that they’ve done nothing wrong and I think that’s what I was the most angry about. I honestly feel like that has also been a big reason why I haven’t been able to be upset about my Mom passing, because I was still so angry at that person.
It had been a few weeks and I still could think about that person and not think anything nicely about them and yeah, maybe that’s not a big deal for some people, but for me it is. It was causing me to be hateful and say awful things about them and that wasn’t like me. I didn’t like the person I was becoming because of it. I am a pretty laid back person and really don’t like confrontation. I try to remove myself from situations that don’t do me any good and this definitely wasn’t doing me any good. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remove myself from the situation at the time. I was just kind of stuck there. I couldn’t figure out how to get over it and how to make the best out of the situation. I did what I do best and wrote a whole blog about that person. It wasn’t a nice blog at all and yeah it would have made me feel better to get it out there so everyone knew what this person did, but only for a second. After that though, I’d still feel miserable with anger and to most people I’d look like one of those people who post on Facebook about their drama and everyone would be rolling their eyes. Most importantly though, God would not approve of me doing this, so I deleted the whole blog. I just couldn’t get over it no matter what I did and didn’t know what else to do to put it past me.
I messaged a friend and opened up about it all and what she sent back honestly was what changed it all. She sent me a prayer of forgiveness. It read, “Father, in the name of Jesus, I choose to forgive as I have been forgiven. I now choose to forgive………..I release any right I have retained to bring revenge. I release them from my hands and place them into Your hands, Jesus my just Judge. I break every curse I have sent to them and call forth a blessings to them instead. Thank you for the grace to forgive and the power to live in freedom. Amen”. She said she went through a similar situation and this is what helped her. She said she wrote out each offense that person made and prayed over each one. Until finally, God took it once she was truly ready to stop holding onto it. Well she probably didn’t know what all that meant to me at that time but the next morning that’s exactly what I did. I wrote it all out, the forgiveness prayer and every single thing that person did to me. I can’t explain it, but it felt like a giant weight off of my shoulders after doing so. I felt like I could breathe normal again. I know it’s a lot easier said than done and it’s not something I can just say and it be over with. This is something I will have to work at. The best way to look at it is that those trials are the devil trying to mess with the forgiveness I have and I have to work to keep it.
I can’t change what that person did to me, but I can change how it makes me feel. I have control over that at least. God wouldn’t want me to let that person make me feel the way that I did. My mom wouldn’t either. So I have moved on and chosen to forgive. Forget, probably not and definitely not putting myself in a situation to be talked to like that again, but forgiven yes. That’s all between that person and God, and if God will forgive me for all the things I’ve done in my life, then I can forgive this person as well. After finding that picture of me writing everything out, it made me think about how many people might need to hear this story. I really wanted to help encourage others that might be going through something similar to this. It can be anything really though. No matter what someone has done to you even though it can be really hard to think of doing it at the time, forgiving them is going to do more good for you than you know. I hope this is encouraging to at least one person and maybe is helping push them into forgiving someone for something they’ve done to them.
There’s no guarantee for tomorrow and letting someone steal your day thinking about what they’ve done to you is only hurting you, not them.

XOXO-Katelyn

Edited by: Morgan Marynissen

The other pictures I find on my phone to be deleted! 🙄👇🏻

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