Don't Settle for Safe by Sarah Jakes Roberts

Author:Sarah Jakes Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

My Models of Forgiveness

I placed my parents in some situations that produced a few gray hairs on my mother’s head and may even have been responsible for my father’s complete loss of hair. Now that I have children I understand just how exciting a child I must have been to raise. No one likes predictability, right? I kept my parents on their toes like ballerinas. They probably have a permanent tiptoe in their stride. While I can easily tell you about a few things I did that would test even the most patient parents’ faith, what’s important here is how my parents consistently responded to my decisions: with forgiveness.

That forgiveness did not come without stipulations for regaining trust or having to face the disappointing expressions on their faces. Still, it only took a few awkward encounters after my shenanigan was discovered for us to get back to normal. Their practice of forgiveness taught me to not hold grudges. Because I have been forgiven so many times, it’s easier for me to forgive.

There was a crucial component of my parents’ forgiveness pattern that I did not recognize as well as I do now. My parents did not allow my mistakes to alter their commitment to me as their child, but they also did not continue on as if nothing happened. “Forgive and forget” makes for a nice slogan, but it’s actually no way to live life. In fact, it’s impossible. You can’t erase the feelings and emotions connected to moments in your life that caused you to question yourself and others in deep ways. Still, there’s a fine line between forgive and remember and unforgiveness.

When we are in environments that praise our ability to be mean, spiteful, and bitter toward people, it stunts our growth. When you dwell in the land of unforgiveness, the only people you attract to your life are those who are comfortable with the same mind-set as you. I believe that in many ways forgiving other people comes down to us discovering the most powerful thought.

If you can recognize that people hurt you—whether intentionally or unintentionally—because of their own brokenness, you will begin to have a level of empathy toward them. That empathy does not remove the pain they caused you, but it does help you release them. It has been said over and over again that “hurt people hurt people,” which is true, but consider how our own pain blinds us from seeing others’ pain. We are often so desperate for validation from someone that we fail to see their humanity. When we imagine someone is incapable of having human failures, we are bound to be disappointed. Many times people hurt me because I had an expectation for them that was rooted in my own desires, not their reality. Therefore my inability to forgive was because they disappointed the role I needed them to fill.

I want to share a story with you about a mother and daughter who experienced this very thing.

“She’s always thought she was so much better than everyone,” Melanie heard her mother whisper at the dinner table.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.