Today I'm doing -- okay. I'm struggling with some of my personality, and we all know how difficult that can be. I have a tendency to cling to the past, but I usually attach my past to a tangible object. I'm struggling right now, however, with a few relationships. I wonder if perhaps I am clinging to these relationships as a way of clinging to my past. I wonder if perhaps I'm thwarting God's best plans for me... I still have a lot of soul searching and prayer to do before I come to a conclusion for this.
I keep finding myself being angry at people who did me wrongs very long ago. I am surprised to see some of the violence I am feeling toward these people -- I thought I had conquered this tendency. I wonder if I am reacting physically now because that is what I used to do. I mean... for example, last night I was thinking about something that my birth sister did to me that really hurt my feelings, and was one of the final straws before my parents sent me away. She hid some food wrappers in my room -- food she had stolen from stores and from our family's freezer. Then she pretended to be sick, and while I was at school, she took Mom into my room to show her all these wrappers. She said she had wanted to borrow a book from me and had found a wrapper by accident. At the time I was furious with her -- I got a great deal of punishment and had to pay for all the food that she had stolen. It was *a lot* of food. I actually wanted to hit her, but knew that I would get in trouble. I still have that desire to hit her... and I wonder if I have that desire because I am dwelling on something in my past, so I react the way I would have in my past. But I still don't understand -- we had plenty of food in the house, and our parents never said no if we said we were hungry. Why did she steal the food? It would also have been much easier to simply throw the wrappers out in the neighbor's trash, or at a friends house, or school, or the store, or anything. Why did she go to the trouble of hiding them all over my room? At the time, we were getting along great, and I hadn't done anything mean to her in a long time. Why did she feel the need to hurt me like that, to get me into so much trouble? That's why I'm so angry. I don't know why she did it at all -- the thought that she planned it, and acted purposefully, just infuriates me.
At this moment I am not angry with her, I am merely sorry that she did it... sorry for her and her soul... and somewhat puzzled. There are other circumstances I keep remembering, and I keep feeling the same feelings I felt then -- frustration, injustice, trapped, and *hurt.* I don't know how to deal with these issues now, so long after they have happened, except to choose not to dwell on them. And I can't help but wonder -- am I merely stuffing them down, so that they will resurface later? Or am I actually choosing to forgive in that instant (which is ultimately what I *want* to do), and I just have to consistently forgive when the thought comes back?
Any thoughts?
1 comment:
There are those in all our lives who have wronged us with no seemingly good reason. We don't always know and can't assume that we know what is going on in their head or lives. But still we have been wronged. From that point we must decide whether or not we are going to allow that wrong to taint our lives. Yes, sometimes it is hard to "forgive and forget" and it does come back up in our lives but then we have to continue to make the decision to forgive again. Christ says we must forgive 70 times 7, or basically as many times as we need to. Also, we can look at those times in our lives and see where God has used them for His glory and our good, and we can be aware that He can and will continue to use those difficulties in our lives to grow and change us to be more like Him if we allow it. I'm praying for you! God bless!
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