This month I went on a bit of a buying spree. I bought 3 new books that got my attention while browsing a Christian book store. I bought 2 from there and I found another at Winco my grocery store. I believe the four books I am reading were divine attentions from God. He needed and wanted me to read them.
The first book I started and finished reading while in the hospital “Forgiving Others, Forgiving me” by Renee Fisher. I have been following Fisher’s website for over a year now. I get a lot of great encouragement reading what she writes and shares on her Facebook page. I was excited to see that one of her books was on sale, so I took the opportunity to buy it. I am glad that I did.
I struggle with forgiveness. I can jump right into reconciliation easier. Because that is where my heart truly is. I am learning that forgiveness and reconciliation go hand in hand. It’s a process that includes grieving, feeling your emotions, and giving yourself a chance to be open and honest with yourself and God about how you are truly feeling and what you want. Reconciliation is usually the end result.
I am going to be open in my review and post here. I will not be sharing names of the 4 core people I am struggling to forgive at this moment in my life. One of the people I need to forgive I do not wish to do the reconciliation process with. He is gone from my life forever. There is no reason to seek out reconciliation from him. Three of them, I do wish to reconcile with because they are a part of my family I do want to. I value and love them deeply. I have never been honest about this to myself about who I want to reconcile with and who I don’t want to. I kept that hidden to myself. I didn’t want to face it because of the major health crisis I’ve been under the last 6 years and it hurt too much to realize that I wasted part of my time with the one person I do not wish to reconcile with. I came to the conclusion while reading this book. I am ready to look at that. I am ready to start healing a few of the relationships that I need healing from. They might not be ready, but I know that I am.
The 3 women I want to reconcile with and learn to let go and forgive them all hurt me in the same manner, although the action part of it was a bit different. I felt a sense of betrayal, abandonment, and being used as a scapegoat to their problems. I was an easy person to blame. I was an easy person to talk to and dump on. I feel these 3 women exhibit roles of emotional and mental instability, a sense of entitlement, insecurity, the blame game, and not seeing their own roles in the problems in their lives or even the willingness to change the victim mentality they exhibit. They weren’t willing or perhaps capable to start taking the small steps to changing their dysfunctional life. I am angry with them for all those reasons. I find myself not wanting to engage with them as much because of it. I hate blaming. I hate pointing fingers. But in order for me to learn to be open about my own healing and forgive them and let it go. I have to name what my problem is. Right? That is a hard part to do. Because I feel like a big bad ogre for feeling the way that I am. I want to jump in and fix them, but I cannot do that. It isn’t my job.
While reading Fisher’s book, letting go needs to happen. I also need to focus on my own life and not being afraid of sharing what my boundaries are. I have to let go of my own anger, and willingness to be the scapegoat and not be afraid to say hey, you are doing this and I want to share it with you. This is my boundary. In 1 Corinthians Paul gives us a great process of confronting someone when they are sinning or hurting us. I have to not be afraid to push their emotional boundaries and share my own hurts with them. I feel like they use emotional words from counselors such as triggers, anxiety, and even I’m overwhelmed because they do not want to face the real facts of what they have done or who they are or the fact that they need to start thinking outside of themselves. They want me to feel guilty. They want to continue to blame and get what they want from those they want things from. I can run away and not say to them hey I have issues too, what are you going to do to fix it on your side? You are hurting me. I think I need to be more willing to swallow my fear and tell them that. Instead of allowing them to hide from the core of the issues. How do you do that without screaming, yelling, or getting into an emotional tyrant stance with them? Perhaps I need to stop being afraid of the screaming, yelling, hitting, or emotional outburst from them.
If I truly want to have reconciliation with these women, I have to let them go to Jesus and ask him to show me how to let go. I have to place my own fears of inadequacy, fear, and pain in his hands. This is a big key to my own wellness. I am sad that these 3 women are not able to be open to their own weaknesses and even to those who clearly love them. Being open is a hard thing to do. Admitting that I have failed and that I did a wrong to someone else or that I am weak in an area is a big thing for me. Shame and guilt and feeling vulnerable to someone else is not an easy thing. I struggle with opening up to others about my own failing and pain.
I am glad that God lead me to Renee Fisher’s book “Forgiving others, Forgiving me. I am the 5th person who I need to forgive and let go of. Forgiveness and reconciliation is a long process. I’m not going to cure it overnight. God created us to be intimate beings. We all think and move at our own pace. I have a hard time waiting for the other person to be at my pace. That is a big weakness and I know it hinders my ability to let go. Comparing is a hard thing not to do. It is all over the place. It is something for me to keep my mind on so that I do not compare my own healing with those around me.
All I know is that I am working on it. I am a work in progress. This book, as you can see brings up a lot of thoughts. I hope you will consider reading it. For your own healing…
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