Forgiveness

it never really occur to me that unforgiveness had such tremendous negative effects/impacts on an individual. no doubt, i knew the importance of forgiveness because only when i forgive, then i can be deemed worthy to be forgiven, but really never knew that it was bad to stay bitter and unforgiving.

first and foremost, pastor spoke of unforgiveness as wickedness. secondly, it provokes god's anger towards us. why? because, god's gracious to forgive all and by having unforgiveness, are we trying to insinuate that we are higher/more superior than Him because he can and we cant? and lastly, which i think it is so true, is that unforgiveness leads to torture. reason being, unforgiveness breeds and it grows at an exponential rate. worse still, it grows without we knowing and it creeps on you unexpectedly. and when it does, emotional, mental torture/torment, sleepless nights are just "minor" but more serious ones like fiery outbursts etc can prove deadly.

therefore, there're 5 ways that's progressive to disperse unforgiveness and to learn to forgive.
1. Don't curse it! - so often, we take matters into our own hands, getting angry and retaliating, becoming vengeful. the problem is that unforgiveness breeds. you may say," i'm not as bad.." but do you curse that person? do you get bitter and agitated even at the mention of the person? do you have evil thoughts and try to devise ways to get back at him/her? one powerful truth is that "Vengence is God's". if we fight for ourselves, god cant fight for you!

2. Don't rehearse it! - so common i would say! we gather in our groups of pity-parties or sympathy groups and sulk and talk and yak about it. it GETS to you! the more we talk about it, it WILL get the better of you coz it reminds you of the negative things and it will seriously get the better of you. don't keep saying and remind yourself about it! resentment is staying in the past, something real small becomes big and gets out of hand and you become paralyzed thus unable to move on. why? unforgiveness is addictive! like beer, smoking! we can be be addicted and the end result? we suffer, coz we get tormented by all these bad memories.

3. Don't nurse it! - don't keep feeding it as per stated earlier! anger is legit response but staying in it will allow torment/torture to enter us! if we don't know how to deal with it, literally, it gets blown out of proportion.

4. Disperse it! - maybe isit time for us to not hold on to someone else's bad deeds anymore? why allow his/her bad-doings become ours? no doubt we may question how does this occur, it becomes our problem when we don't deal with it and disperse the unforgiveness/anger properly.

5. Let nature takes it cause, allowing god to reverse it.
-earlier, we said," Vengence is god's". i believe that most of us, christians or non-christians alike, believe in the parable of sowing and reaping or "karma". For whatever a man sows, he will surely reap. allow "karma" to come at the right timing rather then taking matters into your own hands. don't make yourself more superior to god. be angry and don't let it get the better of you. Learn to properly disperse the anger, learn to let go, learn to forgive.

so often, it is really easier said than done right? yes it is! it definitely isn't easy to forgive especially when we see injustice done to us. and yet, at the end of the day, the ones that really suffer is, a hard truth, ourselves. we get sleepless nights, get emotionally distress, depressed, disappointed, angry and more angry, uncontrollable/imbalanced emotion reactions. All these will manifest outwardly and sooner or later, not just affect our own lifes but the people around us. experts have said that if mental patients know how to forgive others and forgive themselves, 75% of them could walk out of mental hospitals totally normal.

A very sad part is the ones that are most affected is really not ourselves, but our loved ones-family. when i went into the depths of my disappointment, i thought the world was going to end and i went into "zombie-mode". life was just day-in and day-out, work, eat, sleep. my work was affected badly, my life was like a zombie, nights were torture. Drinking was like my second name to be honest because there was where i was not alone. i wasn't shortsighted, i was blinded by unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment. worse, i got vengeful and wanted to get back. unknowingly, i made my mum very sad and worried. i could tell only when i spoke to her and there's where i knew i was unfilial to be of such an age and making her sad. there's where i truly realize that i wasn't hurting alone, i had allowed my unforgiveness to hurt someone close.

ultimately, we our ownselves gotta be the ones to make the decision to either hold on or let it go. im thankful i had supportive people rallying, guiding and helping me on the way. additionally, i had a powerful parakletos that showed me how to get out of my circumstance. one "sure-work" method i used was to pray and bless those whom i had unforgiveness against. there's probably the hardest but the best way. I'm thankful at the same time because i saw how friends of mine get stucked due to unforgiveness and never really able to get out of their slumber. it doesn't take courage and strength to forgive but it really takes everything you've got.

Every disappointment can be a new appointment. Every tombstone can be a new stepping stone.