|
When my husband and I were having problems, my pastor told me that you have to forgive a complete stranger 70 x 7 in a day, no matter how many times they do the same thing that they did in the first place.
So if you have to forgive a stranger, you most certainly have to forgive your spouse.
This was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do. But once I did it, I was more able to forgive others who had hurt me in the past, and once I did that I felt a freedom I had never known before.
My forgiveness may not have affected my husband or the other people I forgave, but it affected me and how I felt about myself.
What made it so difficult was the fact that in order to forgive them, I had to look inside myself at all the things I had done that needed forgiving and had to forgive myself first. It also helped me to realize that a lot of the reasons my husband did the things he had done to me was because of what I had done to him.
Forgiveness goes both ways. You have to ask for forgiveness for yourself, then you have to forgive yourself before you can forgive others, then you are released from the guilt and the fear and your load becomes so much lighter.
Bogdan thank you for the reminder.
Rebecca Beasley
|