Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were. Cherie Carter-ScottThere is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh BillingsThe weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong. Mahatma GhandiAlways forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.Oscar WildeI meet many ladies whoare neither married nor in a much-desired relationship. Yet they are not single. They have been through several prayer sessions but the partner is not coming. Why They still have an unending romance with the pain of a relationship that hit the rocks at a very critical point. After a lot of counselling, they claim they have let go, but they go into the next relationship with an emotional dossier of the previous one.They see the present innocent person in the mould of a previous lover who messed up and so they cannot give the new relationship their best shot.In some cases, in an attempt at a forced renaissance, they overcommit because, still looking from the binoculars of the past experience, they felt they did not commit enough. So they compromise their core values.Whichever way, it is still a REACTION predicated on the dictates of an experience that should rather have been confined to the dustbin of history where it belongs! For this reason, many are stuck with the ghost of their romance with the past. It therefore becomes impossible for them to be properly engaged because they have yet to disengage from the previous relationship.Unforgiveness sometimes chains you to the fear mode, fear of what someone did or could have done to you. Hear Lewis B. Smedes, We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die - for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. ForgivenessHow do you checkmate hurts before they checkmate youDont nurse them. What you nurse you are compelled to feed. What you feed will grow. The more you nurse a hurt, the more monstrous it becomes and the more miserable it makes your life. You have the erroneous notion that you are actually in charge of your emotions but in reality, someone else is holding the remote control! Forgiveness is a gift you owe yourself. If you have so much to accomplish in life, getting stuck in the snapshots of past hurts will not get you there. Your faith actually feeds and grows on your capacity to let go of hurts.Dont rehearse them. People around you have many issues they are dealing with in their own lives. Dont complicate matters for them by regaling them with stories of your hurts at the slightest opportunity. Misery loves company. When hurt people meet, they have nothing worthwhile to share except stories of their woes as if in a desperate move to legitimise their wounded feelings. Resist the temptation. Each time you rehearse a hurt, you discover new chapters about the whole scenario that would have been best forgotten. The pain gets even more pronounced.Dont retain them. When it comes to hurts and offences, keep a short memory. True, you may not forget a hurt in a hurry, but when you choose to let go and let God heal your heart, you can actually perceive things differently. You cannot really be said to have forgiven until you can genuinely feel no resentment against the cause of your offence. Can you look at your former spouse or business partner without feeling a fresh outburst of anger and pain at the years you believe the locusts have eaten in the course of the relationshipDont reverse them. People may cause you pain but never be the one who causes anyone pain. Happiness is not a luxury that an unhappy person can share with another. Retained resentment may lead to reversed resentment where you start looking for every opportunity to get back at the one who hurt you. Forgiveness becomes a reality in your life when you can think about those who hurt you and actually from the depths of your heart, wish them well and pray for their success! Life is too short for you to spend it perpetuating a cycle of pain. Better to be cheated than to be the cheat. Better to be defrauded than to be the fraudster.Do not wait until the one who hurt you asks for forgiveness before you forgive. Nobody will ask you for forgiveness seventy times seven times daily. So what do Look at the word again. Break it into two: fore + give. It means to give it in advance. Waiting every time till it is asked for may put your emotions on destructive steroids that can permanently damage your achievement muscles. Too costly!Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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