Pulling Weeds.

Why is forgiveness so hard? Because some of us feel like when we forgive someone that has hurt us, it is in some way letting them off the hook.. in reality it’s letting YOU of the hook. What do I mean by that? Well, simply whether or not you realize it, when you don’t forgive someone that has hurt you or done wrong to you it will fester into something ugly in your life. It will hinder your ability to live life full of joy and rich with God’s promises.

Unforgiveness is allowing weeds to grow in your life’s garden. No sane person that gardens would allow even one weed to flourish because weeds compete with the garden for the soil’s nutrients, they compete for water and for sunlight. Weeds actually grow and multiply faster than the things in your garden, beginning to block out the sun and soak up nutrients that your garden plants need to thrive and survive. Eventually choking them out and leaving your poor plants lifeless.

Unforgiveness breeds bitterness. The one thing that will choke out the nutrients your heart and soul needs to thrive. Leaving you lifeless.

I have been there. I have held on with clinched fists to unforgiveness and went through the motions of just saying “I forgive you” without realizing that my heart wasn’t into it.

I have spent 8 years allowing bitterness to fester as a direct response to my in ability to forgive. We have been taught from a very young age that when someone hurts you and asks you for forgiveness you say “I forgive you.” What I have learned in my young adult life is that simply saying “I forgive you” doesn’t mean that you really forgave that person.

Allowing years of bitterness in my heart has directly effected my ability to see the other person with the eyes of Jesus. It has been slowly choking life out of me and killing the relationship. I didn’t even realize it until it was to late.

I’ve realized that this weed of bitterness doesn’t hold any prejudice. It destroys anyone and any relationship that it’s allowed to flourish in. No one is exempt. I also have learned that it can happen slowly and silently.

I have learned all of that first hand. I also had to realize that bitterness has been one of the things holding me back from truly being free to live the life God has for me. I had to come face to face with someone that was so close to me that hurt me multiple times deeper than I have ever experienced. And from the depths of my heart forgive them.. not just saying it but digging down to the roots and pulling out those words with every ounce of meaning in my heart..

I. Forgive. You.

Now that wasn’t letting them off the hook, it was letting me off the hook that was choking me out. It was cutting off soul ties that have hindered my ability to find freedom and find my own self worth.

It was releasing them from occupying such a huge piece of my heart and my mind. This thing I held on so tightly to not only bred bitterness towards that person but poisoned my mind. It altered how I saw love and I bought into the lie that I wasn’t enough. It sucked life out of me and I didn’t even realize it. This weed had destroyed this life’s garden.

How about you? Is there someone in your life that you haven’t really forgiven? Or find it hard to forgive?

If I’m being frank, I wish I would have realized sooner that I was allowing weeds to destroy my life garden. To destroy myself worth and my relationship. I know I would be in a way healthier place right now. But, I also know it’s not to late to get your shit together work through the hard stuff and see your life thrive. Today is a new day, a great day, to start pulling some weeds.