Forgiveness is hard. In fact, forgiveness often seems impossible, but, forgiveness is healing. I need constant reminding of God’s forgiveness and His healing. Let me encourage you that if you feel the same, you are not alone.

First, God is the ultimate healer and He has the power to heal us on every level, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Often healing of the three parts goes hand in hand or has a domino effect through each level. I know for me, personally, God did some amazing healing on a deep emotional level over these past 2 years. With the healing of my deepest heart wounds, I am now able to grow closer to God in my spirit and hear His voice more clearly.

Please understand, it was not God that was blocking my closeness to Him. It was my own habit of holding on SO tightly to past hurts that I had built a wall around my heart and would not let God in. Once I was aware of the wall I had built I went to an amazing prayer partner to start tearing the wall down.

Do you know how the healing was delivered? It came through offering forgiveness to my past offenders. I was actually led, during prayer, through a visualization of me forgiving my offenders and then asking Jesus (as He hung on the cross) to forgive them as well. Then, I left my offenders there and walked away signifying my leaving them with Jesus (where they belong), closing the door on the old hurts and breaking down the wall I had built.

This was a deeply emotional experience and I immediately felt the difference in my spirit. I encourage you to bring any part of your life in which you need forgiveness and healing to God then leave it at the foot of the cross. Jesus died on that cross to bring forgiveness to our souls and accepting that gift allows for whole and deep healing through His Spirit. You only need to ask Him and seek Him to receive it.

Now for the hard part. Forgiving ourselves is the first and sometimes the most difficult step. It IS possible and accepting forgiveness for your own past failings is freeing beyond what I can honestly explain. Once you have taken that step then it is time to turn about and forgive those who have hurt you.

That may seem to be a even more daunting task especially depending on the depth of hurt and the number of years you have carried it. For me, the hurts went all the way back to when I was 12 years old, perhaps even younger, and I didn’t realize they were still there until that prayerful time. I had been carrying them like heavy stones in a pack on my back and they were waying down my soul.

I need to be especially clear on one point here. Forgiving those that have hurt you does NOT condone their actions, nor does it excuse them. It merely allows you to lift the heavy rock of hurt from your back pack and walk through life a little easier than before the forgiveness took place.

Trust me, I KNOW what I forgave from my past were terrible offenses. They were deep hurts, both physical and emotional. However, carrying the hate and angst towards the offenders was only hurting me. I’m confident those that hurt me all those years ago never thought about me again. But, by withholding forgiveness I gave them untold power over me and often fell into the pity pit of life.

Since that exercise in forgiveness, my life has significantly changed, FOREVER! I will never pick up those heavy stones again. I can walk in freedom from those hurts thanking God for the good He brought to my life through those bad experiences.

I encourage you to Be Still and ask for forgiveness from God. Then spend time with Him to see what past hurts you are carrying around and listen for His voice to direct your steps of forgiveness. It may be beneficial to ask a dear, trusted friend to pray with you about this, if you feel led to do so.

I pray you can accept the forgiveness that is yours and offer the freeing gift of forgiveness to others. God will help you with this, just ask. Then it will be just as The Lord’s Prayer says: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Blessings and love to you,

Pamela