Day 91: Forgiveness

Hi again,
Today I am thankful for forgiveness. I am not sure exactly why I thought of this for today but I am quite thankful for it. I think we have all screwed up at least once in our lifetime if we are being completely honest with ourselves. I have screwed up several times and I am thankful for forgiveness. I am thankful for that second chance that you get after you screw up. Maybe it isn't even just a second chance-maybe it is a third or fourth chance because sometimes it takes a bit for something to sink in before we learn. :) Not everyone is willing to give us more than a second chance so it is especially wonderful when you have friends or family willing to continue to forgive you. But we should always learn from our mistakes and not continue to make the same mistakes because otherwise it isn't fair to the person we hurt each time. One thing I have learned through out the years and from others hurting me (and sometimes very deeply and very wrongly) is that forgiving a person is not saying you are ok with what they did but you are letting go of holding on to what they did. Forgiveness is for yourself to not hold on to something someone else did to you and let it fester inside of you. You also don't need an apology to forgive someone else even though apologies are nice yet they don't always come. We can't let that stop us from forgiving a person.That was a hard one for me to learn. As a Christian I am thankful for God's forgiveness because I know I have screwed up often and I am far from perfect as no one is perfect. Sometimes you can forgive a person but what ever happened between you is something that has caused you to be unable to repair the relationship and you need to part ways.  I am thankful for the act of forgiveness also because I think it frees us as the one forgiving and possibly also the one being forgiven. Forgiveness sadly doesn't erase the pain immediately but I think it lessens over time. So this is what I have been thinking about today and I am thankful for. Thanks for reading my blog. :)