• Forgiveness is not forgetting. In fact, one must acknowledge negative emotions and events before forgiveness can occur.
  • Forgiveness is not pardoning, excusing, or stating that an offense will be treated as acceptable behavior in the future.
  • Forgiveness is, first and foremost, an internal process. It is primarily for you.
  • The term pseudo-forgiveness has been used to describe forgiveness that occurs with ulterior motives, such as wanting to aggravate or prove the offender's wrongdoings. This approach is not likely to have healing benefits.
  • Forgiveness is a path to freedom. It frees one from the control of the 'offender.'
  • Forgiveness can break patterns that would otherwise interfere with future relationships.
  • Forgiveness can take time and hard work.
  • Forgiveness need not require reconciliation.

    do not:

    1. Think of a person who has wronged you and who you have not been able or willing to forgive.

    2. Describe the experience or experiences in which this "offender" caused you to be harmed or unjustly treated.

    3. Describe the emotions you feel as you consider these events. Are you feeling anger? Shame? Guilt? Are you obsessed with what happened? Take as much time as you need to acknowledge these feelings and put them into words.

    4. How has being unable to forgive affected you? Have the emotions you have felt affected your health? Have they altered your relationships with others? Your worldview? What sorts of defense mechanisms have you created? Do these limit you in any way?

    5. What benefits might forgiving have for you? As you list them, consider the box below.

    Health Benefits of Forgiveness

    As you put yourself in the position of creating a miracle, are you able to more fully understand (not justify) how the past is still with you.

    9. Replay the situation in which your were injured mentally. What can you learn from it about yourself. Re-define your relationship with the offender. Sever any unproductive connections.

    10. Release the emotions that your injury has caused. Express those emotions and resolve to move through them, so that they will no longer cause you to expend energy on them. Ask for support from friends or family members as you do this.

    1. As you are able to forgive, explore the meaning of your experiences. How will this alter your future behavior and your perspectives? Are there other injuries you need to forgive? Re-affirm and re-assess what you feel is your purpose in life, in light of these experiences.

    69TH birthday.. EVENTS...DREAM ON MY BIRTDAY RE. MY CODEPENDENT RELATIONSIP WITH MICHAEL...PAST IS STILL WITH ME.. SEE HOW CO-DEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS CREATED MY HEALTH AND FINDING SHALLOW RELATIONSHIPS AROUND ME.. YET ALL THE ILLUSIONS OF HOW TIME & INTIMACY IS VOID IN MY RELATIONSHIPS. TEARS OF EMPTYNESS AROUND ME.. LET GO & let god heal...

    SILENCE OF REFLECTIONS...

    "When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days in the same place where he was." John 11:6

    Has God trusted you with a silence - a silence that is big with meaning? God's silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? God will give you the blessings you ask if you will not go any further without them; but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvellous understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, praise Him, He is bringing you into the great run of His purposes. The manifestation of the answer in time is a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you said - "I asked God to give me bread, and He gave me a stone." He did not, and to-day you find He gave you the bread of life.

    A wonderful thing about God's silence is that the contagion of His stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident - "I know God has heard me." His silence is the proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, He will give you the first sign of His intimacy - silence.

    www.myutmost.org