April 7, 2016

F – Forgive and stop looking at the Past


I have chosen 26 Tips for a Happy Married Life as my theme for A-Z April challenge, 2016.
Today the word is

Forgive past mistakes stop looking at the Past

Forgiveness is a beautiful quality that makes us divine, as the saying goes “to err is human but to forgive is divine” so very true. Humanly speaking it is not easy to forgive and worse still to forget; as our mind remembers every details of all the hurts and situations, the words spoken, the emotions that is attached giving us meaning and making us relive another 100 times throughout our lives; we remember childhood hurts, persons who were mean to us, insulted us, manipulated and exploited us.. 

We never forget them and whenever we recall everything comes back fresh as though it happened yesterday. So the first rule is learn to forgive oneself, it’s a loving act; no matter what is been our past, it’s over and we must release and move on, without letting us control our present.

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In a marital relationship forgiveness plays an important role and life becomes difficult when we store all the old issues, it weighs us down hindering our progress. The simple thing to do is to make a decision to forgive and take each day as a fresh new blank page. It is not very easy to do but definitely not impossible. I am grateful to God for the learnings I had in my early youth and forgiveness was something that I struggled with. 

Then in a prayer service I heard the preacher talk about the importance of forgiveness and encouraged all the youth to make a decision to forgive and experience healing of our past wounds and hurts. So then on I made attempts to forgive, of course I could not forget… and it took a lot of time to let go and release the past hurts and wounds. 

The early days of our marriage was difficult to practice forgiveness and there were moments of bitterness, anger, irritations mostly because of the influence of the third parties who were insecure, losing their hold and may be could not accept the new entry in the family. I also found the importance practising forgiveness of self, not to live in regrets. Books like “you can heal yourself” like Louise Hay and a lot more spiritual books helped me to look at forgiveness of self as a positive quality of being kind to self.

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With a lot of patience, prayers and perseverance I learnt the hard way to practice and leave the past behind. Once I made the decision to move on and not to turn back, accepting and forgiving my husband became an auto response. Joyce Meyer, a famous preacher says that “Forgiveness is not a feeling it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God.

It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.”Finally to forgive means to understand even oneself says Alexander Chase.

Do you forgive? what do you do when you are hurt ?

12 comments:

  1. Angela, indeed to forgive, forget and move on is what we must practice. Forgiving someone is one of the most positive traits one can have. Beautiful words by you.
    @KalaRavi16 from
    Relax-N-Rave

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    1. Thanks dear for your kind words.. glad to stay in touch and I loved your blog and blog posts.. thanks for sharing :)

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  2. This is the hardest tip to follow . I find it really hard to forgive certain things . I still manage to overcome the hurt and the anger so perhaps in a way I've forgiven the transgression .....

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    1. Yes ! agree with you totally.. I have struggled very hard with this for years and with great difficulty learnt to at least make a decision. some things cannot be forgotten, but we deserve to have peace more than forgiving the ones who have harmed us...

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  3. Oh, you cant hold grudges in a marriage for long. But forgiving and forgetting does not come easily to most of us. But it is so very much needed for our own mental peace.

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    1. Very difficult to continue day to day task holding grudges and resentment, the sooner we deal with it the better it is... as we move along, we will learn to live with the limitations.

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  4. I just wrote on another post that I struggle with this in my marriage. I do forgive my husband, but I struggle with the forgetting and not bringing it up in future arguments. I am trying though. Thanks for sharing. Cassie from Mommy, RN

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    1. I know what you are speaking about.. its quite tough not to bring up in future.. does take time to accept such experiences, they say time is the best healer,pray and hope that you be strengthened to look at the positive side of your husband..which will help you :)

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  5. I hold the same opinion. However tough it is to forgive but to progress we have to forgive and forget. In every relationship it is the key ingredient of having a tranquil and happy life... :)

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    1. very well stated shesha, the desire to forgive is enough, we will find a way to deal with the emotions as we need to move on and progress...

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  6. Forgiveness - to ourselves first - how true this is Genevive thank you. This is powerful post with so much said in few words by you. We don't have to forget necessarily but the wounds lessen as we forgive.

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    1. I used to have serious issue in forgiving myself; and suffered from guilt until I had to learn to forgive myself which not only freed me from within but also helped me to be generous with others when they hurt us..

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