Let it go - or be forever frozen

And this is a story all about how my life got twisted turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there and I'll tell you how I became the queen of a town called...no not Bel-Air ..........forgiveness

After my defiant hardened reaction, I had to face myself and decide if I was playing church or was actually trying to be more like Jesus! Turns out....it was the latter.

It takes much more effort to actually be upset and mad at someone than it takes just to let it go.....

Let it go......

or stay........

Frozen

Frozen in time, frozen in your attitude, limiting your altitude and compromising your state with God. God tells you that your body is a holy and living sacrifice; a place that he dwells. I'm pretty sure that although he created the seasons, frozen over hearts wouldn't be his favoured place to hang out.

I decided to forgive. To let it go. In the moment when I did it, I literally felt weightless. Like water running from a once frozen stream. Free.

I got it, unforgiveness is like weight you carry around, everywhere you go. Everywhere, with each person you choose not to forgive, the load gets heavier, you move slower. You grow colder. You have less room to trust people, less room to love people. Less places to let anyone in.

My daughter taught me a little gem...it goes like this...

A habit is a habit,

Everywhere you go you have it

If you take off the h 

you still have a bit

If you take off the a 

you still have bit

If you take off the b

you still have it

And wouldn't it be better that if you are going to carry around a habit, it be one worthy of taking every single place you go?

People are going to hurt us, despitefully use us, persecute us or just plain annoy us but if we have a habit of forgiveness- well- we will forgive them and keep it moving, everywhere we go!

That's a habit worth keeping...be habitual about being spiritual.

Forgive- in the moment- for you may not have the luxury of time

Forgiveness is a hard thing for us human folks. Hard for us common folks. Hard for us broken folks. Hard for us hurting folks. Forgiveness, is even harder to 'give' in the moment when you are being hurt, wounded, mocked, lied upon by people you helped; people you love deeply. But we are called to forgiveness. It's hard.

I watched the movie War Room with my trio last week Friday, at first my daughter said - I want my money back, can we watch something else? She had paid no money, and I certainly wasn't watching a cartoon- because I was about my father's business. But as the show progressed she grew quiet; the seed was embedding. At the end I asked her what she thought of a war room for our house, she smiled- I'm not sure, where would we put it? I wouldn't want anybody to be able to read my stuff, she declared. She had become open to idea.

Praying is a powerhouse of a tool. I don't do it quite as much as I should.

For me, the movie changed my perspective on the 'enemies' we fight, and how I have been going about the fight All wrong this whole time! I have been fighting against people- pushing back against people instead of fighting the real enemy working through them. I need a war room, in-fact...I need a war house!

When people hurt me,and I look at their faces, and I hear their voices, all I see, hear and feel is my hurt, my pain, my betrayal. All I remember is how good I was to the person, how much I helped, sacrificed and gave my all. All I can think is how good I am and how bad they are. All I AM is angry. All I AM is hurt. All I AM is not forgiving. All I AM is fighting the wrong enemy. All I AM is losing.

And today I thought about forgiveness and these words  Luke 23:34 Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do....." as I stared at a face I felt too hurt to forgive. The wound was still fresh, and forgiveness was too much to ask. Hard.
As the words of Jesus danced upon my heart, I hardened it even as I thought this :- How awesome a God we serve that in the very moment that they mocked, geared, spat, betrayed, pierced, and abused him, the I AM, the creator of the universe, could say and live out the words - Forgive!

Here I AM, just a regular lady who had been hurt that was refusing to forgive, after the fact, and looked upon a face of someone that betrayed me and see them as'bad' and myself  as 'good'. I was the good one, the kind one, the one who was wronged. I have all right to be angry, upset, and militant about my unforgiveness. I AM wrong and strong! And this is why ALL our righteousness are but filthy rags, for our 'goodness' - well - it's just no good!

And God calls us to do the hard things. The things we don't want to do, the things that stretches us, the things that prepares us for what is to come. If as a Christian I want to be more like him, well, forgiveness - in the moment - has got to be a new normal and I will have to look myself in the mirror, swallow deeply and ................................follow Christ's example. Hard.

Last year, I ate a lot of pork; this year I decided that I didn't want to eat as much pork. I was resolute and I had pork, maybe four times this year. Three out of those four times, my body totally rejected it. It was upon the third occasion, just this weekend, as I sat curled up with a case of the runs that I realized what my body was trying to tell me on those other occasions.

My body said - 

Tanya, even though pork tastes so good to the taste buds, we, the digestive system have decided that we will no longer accept it, after all this time; it is foreign to us now and we do not want it any longer. In the event that you decide to forget what we clearly showed to you two times before, we will continue with the 'runs' in a more serious way, until you understand our position.

 Best regards, 

The Digestive system

Since, I have better things to do than fight with my own body, I think I'll give up pork altogether, hoping in the back of my mind that giving up fresh pork doesn't include me having to give up ham! For Christmas is a coming! 

It isn't the first time my body has rejected foods that I like to eat, it did it before with mangoes, fish and rice, and for each of those foods I did something that got my body to re- adjust ever so nicely to accepting them again!

Follow me- I promise I'm going somewhere with this!

This is what I did - even though my body said no - I kept eating those things my body didn't want - a little at a time, even through the occasional tummy aches and upchucks- I continued eating them until my body got used to them and I could have some of my favourites again without any painful reminders that once signaled their arrival into my digestive system.

It is the job of an active conscience to tell you when you have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, if you keep denying and suppressing that conscience, eventually it becomes less active, and you end up waist deep in a sinful unforgiving state of being. 

Like my digestive system, that voice of reason that speaks to you when you know you are wrong, that voice that brings a scripture to your heart that solidifies your wrong, is trying to save you from a night curled up in pain and anguish. It is trying to save you from a more serious case of the runs. But the more you indulge in sin, a little at a time, is the more that you will become accepting of it, and the less you will feel that conscience pricking you to do what is right. 

So I am caught in my wrong and I must make it right - 70 x 7. Hard. Yet doable, if I consider the consequences - and I must.

A little song I learnt recently from an African missionary to Jamaica...

I want to be more and more like Jesus

I want to be more and more like him

I want to be more and more and more and more

More and more and more and more 

More and more and more Like him

When I sing these words,I want them to be true, I want to be forgiving,I want to show God's love to those who hurt me, I want to learn to forgive, in the moment. I want to soften my heart instead of harden it. I want to do it so that in loving my enemies - I give them pause - I give them thought- I give them a moment to have questions dance on their hearts. A simple question like - how is it that she still shows me love, when I gave evil for good?...........and maybe, as they go about their daily lives, if not me, then someone will be able to answer that question and simply say :-

"Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?"

Then the I AM that is within me would be winning!

Forgive ....in the moment....for we may not have the luxury of time


Related Post:How to forgive with an eraser called time

How to forgive with an eraser called time

When you stare at a blank canvas 

 When you are a writer without words, 

When you have the story but you can't stain the stark white canvas with your blood soaked tears.

When the story is so deeply rooted, it wraps you from the soul of your feet to the crown of your head.

When you know that the story needs to be told, for it is no longer yours, because God says to use it, he showed you how to use it for he knows just who and how it will bless-

 but...

You wrestle with pride, you wrestle with a shame that's not your own.

People will know my pain, people will know where my dry bones live, they will connect to me in a way that I didn't want, they will be too close for comfort- inside my bubble that I alone breathe the freshest of stale air. When you know your test, those lived experience that almost broke you, yet didn't- needs to come out- the words begin to reluctantly flow and you start- possibly at the beginning.

Ezekiel 37 1:3 And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered. O Lord God though knowest.

As questions go, I'm definitely thinking, that question right there was fully loaded; and if I were asked it today, I would say an emphatic Yes, but a few years ago- I would have said no.

I had my own valley of dry bones. I did not prophesy to them. They did not live.

I remember conversations that my friends had in high school about their families, when it was a general conversation, I'd lend my colourful stories, and my mommy's Jamaican sayings but when the conversation became parent specific- daddy specific- I'd go. I'd become quiet. I'd have nothing to say.

There were times when I didn't get to escape fast enough and be asked about my dad- I'd very promptly say 'My father lives overseas-' I'd say it with a fortitude which resonated -no more questions please- but occasionally, a teenage girl wouldn't get it and would continue to ask. That's when my shame kicked in, and I would squeeze my toes into the soles of my shoes and died a little bit inside.

I had nothing to say. I didn't know him. Never met him. He was bones in a graveyard of unspoken conversations, unspoken advice about boys, un-felt hugs, un-heard fears. 

 Children internalize their own pains.

I think I learned to hate at this graveyard- but not people- just him.

I met my father once, for the first time- as a teenager- in college. It wasn't like Oprah. I had played and replayed those Oprah like reunions in my head, how we would reunite and there would be nothing but hugs, tears of joys, kisses and life would end with the 'happily ever after theme' but it didn't happen quite - like - that.

Parents carry their own pains.

It was awkward. My happily ever after dream was tattered, broken, in a desolate graveyard, yet there he stood and my heart ran for cover. No - dry bones cannot live.

He tried to make a mends, but it was too late, I could not relate, I could not dream. There was underlying resentment, there was underlying hate.

God knows our pains.

It's not that my life was bad without him, it's just that I told myself it would have been better. I would have made better choices. I would have picked better boyfriends. I would have been married. I would have had someone to fight for me. I would have had more - of everything- but oh how I was wrong.

 The story of Joseph and his brothers came to me as I started to peel a pineapple and an orange to make my morning salad. It was about 10am and I was hungry. My spirit said- fast today- until 12.

I rolled my eyes- yes I did- the juices from the orange dripped through my fingers and I rolled my eyes and said- really? I'm peeling the fruits though. I finished peeling the fruits, put them away and the fridge and spent some time with God and then he showed me something I never would have heard with a full stomach.

Children have to learn to forgive parents who have made mistakes by them.

My life would not have been better if my father was always a part of it, it would just have been different. Different doesn't equal better.

Imagine for a minute a famine, a famine so bad that people were willing to become slaves for food. Joseph's family, living in Canaan had money to buy food but they had no food. There was food in Egypt. They would get food from- bones. To Jacob, Joseph was dead. It had been 15+ years. To his brothers, he had been good as dead- it had been years since they sold him. The brothers went down to Egypt with a hope and a prayer and got not only food but restoration. The family's seemingly dry bones-lived.

Now see how different doesn't mean better? if Joseph was not sold, how would lives have been saved? Not just lives of Joseph's immediate family but a nation?
Gen 45: 5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

God sees the whole story - we see the script - a day at a time.

Forgiveness is hard- ask Joseph.

Forgiveness is undeserved- ask Jesus- about us

Forgiveness is necessary- ask me

I too had my time of famine, as we all do, and you know what? My father, the earthly one, well he gave me grain- and put back the money in my sack too. This is not why I forgave him-

I forgave him because Jesus gave me an example of forgiveness.
I forgave him because you can't prophesy to those you hate,
I forgave him because you can't give life to those you hate.
I forgave him because I needed restoration.
I forgave him, for me and for him.

My only hope now is that he can forgive himself.

There are times when you look at a graveyard of bones, and all you can see for miles is just death. Oh, but GOD, has defeated death, so you no longer have to live in man made graves of guilt and shame.

I had a graduation from another college recently, my father came, he smiled, he was proud, it was a little closer to the Oprah like reunions- yet- it wasn't. It was real life- and the oldest wounds leave the darkest scars. But time has erasers.


^{Ezekiel 37:13} And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,¹⁴ And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.

Ask me today if dry bones can live and I will tell you: Yes
Ask me today if that lost family member can be restored, I will tell you: Yes
Ask me today if that person that you 'sold into slavery' can show you love and forgiveness and I will tell you: Yes

Is anything too hard for God?

It takes a particular type of famine for us to go and seek that which was lost but even in what seems like forever, is an eraser called time.

In time, I erased hate with love
In time, I erased resentment with forgiveness

In time, I erased lost time with daily conversations

I write a new song on my heart.


I call you to action:
Will you forgive and honour a parent ?
will you trust God to let dry bones live?


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