A Forgiving Mind

I am perceiving that the wandering mind is often wandering to the same places again and again because it is alighting on unforgiven things, like a butterfly flitting from hurt to hurt.

Sometimes it alights directly on the memory and replays it. Sometimes it is just hopping to all sorts of things and trying to avoid being in the body memory of pain.

Forgiveness seems to be the key to life. When I hold someone, including myself, or the past, hostage with a state of condemnation I am held down too.

I remember a time when for decades I would circle round and round the same hurt places. One time my kind mother spoke up in wisdom and said, “Have you ever thought about forgiving him?” A lightbulb came on in that moment. A break in the veil of darkness of hurt and anger and blame began. A little bit of light shone through with the possibility of release.

I’m sure that I had thought about forgiveness before but it was only in that moment that some real Light dawned. Something in my heart broke free and felt a moment of lightness where only the heaviness of pain had dwelt.

I’m sure that I imagined that it would be impossible or even unwarranted or unforgivable. But by the grace of God there was just enough willingness in my spirit that day to at least entertain the idea of beginning the process.

Since that time I have circled round again and again, ever deeper to those places of pain that bubble up. And each time I have done my best to forgive, over and over again. And then that expanded to more and more people. And now it’s finally expanding to my own self.

I know it is a lifetime of work. There are layers and layers. But I can tell that my spirit grows lighter with each act of forgiveness. And when I need to know how or find the strength I was told to ask Jesus to teach me, to open my heart.

Lately, I have been gifted with seeing in my meditations the state of hurt and pain that the person who hurt me was in…usually as a young child. The degree of compassion that comes over me when I see this hurt and wounded self allows me to easily ask for forgiveness and even come to love that person more. It allows me to feel more grown and less like an injured child myself when I am given the gift of using my large heart of adult compassion. And I see over and over again how we all have fallen short. Let me not cast the first stone. Because usually, I’ll end up living through a similar situation in my life. Then I’ll know the situation from their point of view and finally understand.

Forgiveness is a blessing to my own life. It lifts the curse of being chained to condemnation of another. I want to fly free. I want my soul to be so light and unburdened from the stones of condemnation that I rise up to heaven and soar with God, dissolving into His love. Which is full of forgiveness and I am made in this image. I just need to remember.

Try and forgive, be free.