When I was praying the other day, before writing about my experiment I believe I felt the presence of God and also that I got told to go to the prayer meeting, Other stuff happened too actually. I addressed my resentments with the church to the Lord. I felt Him telling me I should be more patient and loving and forgive and as that happened I realized that I had never forgiven. I always thought I did. I merely forgot about it but at every reminder the resentment bubbled up. True forgiveness is not given for the sake of the other person but for the sake of our own wellbeing and I realized that I am not sure how to forgive. The list of grievances keeps growing and none are taken away through genuine forgiveness on my part and it is poisoning me and stopping me from enjoying the benefits I can receive through genuinely forgiving the wrongs I have experienced.
I am a particularly bad case because I take offence for impersonal things. Someone at church makes a racist comment about Muslims, well, I take it personally because I seem to have internalized the Martin Luther King Jr. quote about injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere so they might as well be talking about me. I felt the need to pray for the ability to forgive, because I am not sure how, and they keep in bits poisoning me. I cannot truly learn from the experience until forgiveness is brought about, then I can use my past experience in an impassionate way and know how to enact change.
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