Forgiving Yourself . . .

Do you forgive yourself or do you keep beating yourself up about things you have done in the past? The past could be yesterday!

Whenever that past was for you, do you keep bringing it forward in your mind? They say women think like a bowl of spaghetti. Picture a bowl of noodles. All the noodles are twisted up entwined in each other and touching each other. That is why when a woman thinks about something her mind jumps from subject to subject, because each thought is intertwined with another thought.

If I am upset with one of my children my mind will bring me back to that thought in everything I do that day. I may be a little touchier at work or take it out on the other kids or my husband, or maybe the poor cashier at the grocery store. Either way, we just have a difficult time not showing our emotions in everything we do, it’s all connected.

Confusing - yes. God made us that way for a reason.

While this is good for women in some ways, it can also hinder us. Because we are wired that way we tend not to let go of things. Especially things that are emotional.

I have a few things in my life that I am not very proud of the way I handled the situation or the decision I made. I’ve prayed about them. Tried to make them right if that is what is needed. Made the appropriate apologizes, but never really let it go.

 Did you know that when we ask God for forgiveness, a heartfelt faithful forgiveness, it is done? He forgives us, just like that. 

Two weeks later during prayer time with God we bring it up again. He is like “what are you talking about, I didn’t see you do that”. 

Of course our God doesn’t talk like that but you get the idea. Once you ask God for forgiveness it is done, don’t bring it up again. 

Of course it is going to cross you mind, us humans can’t forget, except where put our keys. When it comes to the big stuff, we tend to hang onto it forever. We bring it up and mull it over again and again. What a waste of precious time.

We could be moving forward, doing something useful instead of thinking in the past.

Remember David and Bathsheba. David sinned with a married woman, got Bathsheba pregnant and had Uriah, her husband killed. After the baby was born it became ill. David asked God to spare the child. He lies on the ground for seven days and would not get up or eat. I imagine he was praying for his child to live. When the child died, David got up, washed himself clean, put on clean clothes and then went and worshiped God. Then he went home and ate.

 

It was done. He had sinned; God punished him by allowing the child to die. However we don’t see David wallowing in self-pity. He took the repercussions of his sin then moved on.

Sometimes we have visual repercussions such as David did; a child was born from his lust. There are times no one can see our sin except God. It doesn’t matter, sin is sin, and there is no big sin or little sin in God’s eyes. 

Once God has forgiven us, we must forgive ourselves. Our Heavenly Father wants us to have a good life, be content, spread His word and live faithfully. We can’t do this if we are wallowing in self quilt.

Today if you have guilt that drags you down, go to God in prayer and request forgiveness, then get up and live the life the good Lord gave you.

Praise Him and pass it on.

Broken Promises

by Lillian Humphries

Have you ever broken a promise? Most of us have, intentionally or not we have fallen down on our word. It isn’t nice and normally guilt follows.

Of course the worst promises we can break are the promises we make to God. But today I want to focus on what a broken promise to yourself does to you.

When we make a deal with our self, a promise, we are making a commitment, putting our word on the line. I know when I make a promise to myself I mean every word of it. Down to my toes, I am gung-ho about the project. Doesn’t matter what the project is, when I say it I mean it.

• Starting January 1st, I will read my Bible 15 minutes every day. 
• Come Monday I am going to start my diet.
• After the Halloween candy is gone I am going to cut out all sugars.
• No more diet sodas for me.
• This year I’m going to mail more cards of encouragement.

I will . . . . fill in the blanks.

Then something happens and we break our promise. Normally it is just life gets in the way. A party comes up and we go off our diet. We skip a day reading our Bible because we got up late. We run out of cards and forget to buy some the next time we are at the store. Pretty soon it has been a couple of days, then a week, then two weeks and we haven’t gotten back to our promise.
It's done, we have broken the promise.

What happens when we break these promises? We feel bad about ourselves. Sometimes they can really depress us and they carry negative emotions with them. There are enough negative messages coming at us; we don’t have to add more with our own inner voice attacking ourselves.

 
 When the promise is broken we need to take a positive action.

• Apologize to yourself. Literally tell yourself you are sorry and you will try again. That is what you would do to a friend.
• Forgive yourself. You forgive others, why not yourself.
• Start over. It isn’t the end of the world, you stumbled, and you didn’t jump off a cliff.

 I have been promising myself and others to write a book that is on my heart. I keep going back to it and then life gets in the way. Today I am starting again, not at the beginning but right in the middle where I left off.

 What promise did you break to yourself? Share with me and let’s see how many of us can pick that project (whatever it is) back up and start again