Last weekend, I wrote about the importance of honesty when facing difficult seasons. I remembered a time in my life when honesty was needed- yet oh so hard to find. 😔Rather than being open about my struggles, I chose to hide behind a veil of false happiness and the carefully cultivated 🎭image of a perfect family.
Now, I recognize the important connection of honesty to healing. I also understand something that made a difference in my ability to move beyond that ⛈tough time in my life to a ☀️season of new beginnings. That, my friends, is forgiveness. Can you imagine? (You’re welcome, Hamilton fans.)
To find a sense of peace and purpose in my honesty, I had to ↔️unite it with forgiveness- for myself and everyone involved in that unhappy scenario. 😢 I had to face the fact that my ex-husband and I were both 🙋🏻♀️guilty of letting our marriage become a place of 😬frustration and 😡animosity and ruin. I had to release the idea that I was holding onto something for my kids. I had to forget the life that I had envisioned. I had to leave the lies behind and face the truths. I’m not going to share specifics because the story is ours and not just mine to tell.
There was a time when I didn’t want to 🙊speak to my ex. I’m sure he felt the same about me. 😥The hurt was too deep. 😥The pain too raw. 😢The abandonment too real. Guess what? All of that is gone. Today, we can 😂laugh. We can remember good times. We can be thankful for our children and the 💝gifts they are to both of us.
Want to know something else? We are still 💕family. We celebrate the 🎄holidays together. My husband considers him a friend, just as I do. He is interested in our daughter- even sitting on the sidelines to cheer for her at 🏐volleyball games. We text about silly things. We discuss the difficult topics- better than we did all those years ago. Is there anything unique about our situation? I don’t think so. The only difference is that all of us wanted to make it happen. Each one of us chose to forgive.
I will say that forgiveness isn’t easy. It comes with 😢tears. It brings 😡anger first. It takes more than it gives. It 🥊fights back. It doesn’t come cheap. But- if you keep striving to get there, forgiveness brings🌻peace on the other side.
Don’t we all have people in our lives that could use a little forgiveness? 🌹I was afraid of forgiveness. I thought it meant forgetting the struggles, ignoring the hurt. What it really meant was ⭐️power. Yes- there is ⭐️power in forgiveness. We have the ⭐️power to forgive and that makes all the difference. With that ⭐️power comes potential. If you simply stay in the space of hurt and pain, there is no arena for transformation. 🌸No spot for renewal. 🌸No room for growth. 🌸We just continue to wallow in those muddy waters. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you forget the lessons. It means that we use our power to 🚀propel us forward with the wisdom that only 👀hindsight can bring.
What if…we forgive? It may feel awkward. It might even seem like a setback. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting your past. It means honoring yourself enough to 🌸grow and 🌻change. It is a gift of peace that we give to ourselves.💝
sharing the stairs 