Yes, Tulsa, where I am enjoying very different temps from Milwaukee! Beautifully sunny, green grass, green bushes....much Spring in the air. But, back to WI reality later today.
I would like to share from my reflection in "Give us This Day" by Lewis Smedes writng on forgive-ness. I'm sure you have had the experience of holding on to hurts, actually nursing them, finding it so difficult to let go, to forgive.
AND....you and I know that WE are the ones hurting, suffering, being miserable. The "hurter" totally oblivious is enjoying life, going along "free"...and we blasted in pain....self-made, at that. If only we could just see the sense of it all, actually the stupidity of it all....making myself miserable. Sound familiar?
Lewis says "forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself. Getting even is a loser's game. It is the ultimate frustration because it leaves you with more pan than you got in the first place...Your own memory is a replay of your hurt--a videotape within your soul that plays unending retuns of your old rendezvous with pain...You are hooked into it like a pain junkie; you become addicted to your remembrance of pain past...Is this fair to yourself-this wretched justice of not forgiving? You could not be more unfair to yourself...
The only way to heal the pain that will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you... forgiving stops the reruns of pain. Forgiving heals your memory as you change your memory's vision.
When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life.
You set a prinsoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself."
Did you recognize yourself? I surely did!
What words of wisdom....now to take them to heart...and do them....tough, but the way to go!
LENTEN BLESSINGS...
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