Forgive Easily

Gracie has enough joy that she could definitely hand it out to a few people, me in particular. She's always bouncing around the house, mauling my other dog, and looking at me with those huge brown eyes. She's incredibly spunky, even when I attempt to scold her. She doesn't cower away; it's more like she leaps away, but her tail is still wagging. I can't decide if she is just incapable of being depressed, or if my cries of "NO!" just aren't loud enough.

I've had a huge weight that I've been carrying for a while now, and I still can't place exactly what it is. It's been with me for probably years now, recreating itself based off of whatever situation I'm going through. The weight feels the same, but I have learned to deal with it much differently now. I will admit readily that I am not a perfect follower of Christ. I make mistakes every day, and for a long time, I kept myself from asking for forgiveness. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I didn't want to admit that I was doing something wrong, or if I simply had tried to twist God's unconditional love into something like blind love. In my last post, I mentioned that God woke me up and reminded me that I hadn't changed. I was still carrying a burden that I wouldn't let God handle. All I wanted to do was continue to feed that burden because it felt justifying for me. It's easy for us to get angry, and usually when we get angry, we want to get REALLY angry. We don't want to just say "No, it's alright", we want to keep at it and call up our best friend and tell them just how much we hate so and so. I caught myself doing it today.

I learned an important lesson one day from a doctor I see every now and then. He told me that it isn't right for us to try and handle the people who wrong us. Instead, we should pray for them. He said, "Lauren, when you sit down to pray, what you should say is 'God, thank you for this amazing day. Thank you for the breath I have breathed. Please, bless (fill in the blank). I forgive them, and I pray that you will bless them'". He then went on to explain to me that, "Often times, we feel like we need to feel a sense of justice. We feel like that person deserves to be hurt just like we did. But in reality, when we ask God to bless them, we are not only asking that God will be good to them, but that God will give them what it is that they deserve. Blessing is a form of justice." It's weird to think about at first, but I later understood exactly what he meant. This prayer was something I immediately took into action about something that I'm sure I'll eventually get into in a later post. I have a testimony that I've been dying to let loose.

Gracie knows that I love her, no matter how mad she makes me. No matter how many pairs of underwear she eats, I still manage to forgive her. God will always forgive us if we are willing to ask. We shouldn't be prideful before God. God created us and each one of us individually is a part of His great work. Even our mess ups have a way of shaping things, and I believe it ultimately is for God's overall plan. We have to be hopeful, because if we were not, what would we be living for? When we try to forgive those in our own lives, it can be a huge struggle. It's not hard for God. Jesus died for us so we could have the opportunity to be in touch with God, so that we could even have the chance to gain forgiveness. We should pray daily that God will help us to forgive like Him. I pray every night that God will help me to love like He can, because I know my love is imperfect, especially when I feel like I've been injured.

Keep your head up readers, and let God handle it.