Last night I spent a good hour working on the forgiveness activity from Day 20. Wow! It was rough, but I'm thankful for it because I saw something incredible and new.
I had 6 people/groups that I chose to write about in the activity. The include family, people from my youth and people I lost friendships with and people that I am friends with now. I wrote about each on a separate page. My plan is to work through this, even if I have to continue writing about it for some time to come, and when I am done I will burn the pages. I began each entry in a similar fashion to the example given in the Thin Within book. I then proceeded to list, in general terms, the hurts and grievances that I have been holding onto. I also made sure to really look at the grievance and not just blow it off or excuse it (that's what I've been doing for years and has gotten me nowhere).
Then I made an amazing discovery.
I found that the vast majority of my grievances all stemmed from the same injury: these people weren't living up to MY standards! I was holding things against them that I unnecessarily expected of them! One example is a guy that I used to be friends with and had a huge crush on. The Lord had clearly told me not to pursue him. When it finally became obvious to me that he was not romantically interested in me, in my feelings I turned on him and I lost his friendship (which had been very dear to me). I had certain standards for him (ungodly personal Yvonne expectations) that he didn't live up to. So I've been angry for years because he couldn't read my mind.
WOW! Amazing! Most of my anger and bitterness has been SELF-INFLICTED. I need to spend time in the Word to get to know the Lord so that I know what His will is. That way, I can line up my will with His, have godly parameters, make biblically sound judgments and have no reason to hold my grievances against others.
I'm not sure if any of this is making sense (my husband it talking at me in the background), but THIS IS HUGE for me. There are some things that I finally feel freed up about, things that I have been holding onto for half of my life.
Praise the Lord! He sets captives free!
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