To err is human, to forgive divine!

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We all make mistakes from time to time.  We all fall short of the mark from time to time.  We all have a difficult time forgiving from time to time.  If you think that there is a single person who is walking the planet today who hasn't had their share of mistakes, then you are mistaken. I would say that we are in some pretty good company when it comes to making mistakes.  What I want you to do is put yourself ahead of most other people by allowing yourself the opportunity to forgive yourself when things don't go as planned.

Now there are a fair amount of people who will tell you that they never have an issue with forgiving themselves.  If they make a mistake they dust themselves off and move on.  That's a good thing, but what about those who have not learned to do this?  What are they supposed to do?  Failure to forgive is nothing more than holding yourself from any future progress.  Being unable to forgive yourself is nothing more then putting yourself in a jail cell and throwing away the key.

Being able to forgive is not always easy, and when you have been hurt by someone else forgiveness is almost impossible.  I'm not saying it's impossible because you don't want to forgive, what I'm saying is, is that it is darn near impossible because often we don't know how to forgive.  To truly allow forgiveness to operate in your life you need to do two things.  First is the forgiveness part.  If you hold something against someone who may have hurt you, you are the only one who is going to continue to suffer.  Forgiving is letting it go.  The second phase of forgiveness is the forgetting aspect.  Now forgetting is probably the hardest of the two steps, because we often want to hold on to things for a later date just in case we need some sort of ammunition for later on.   If you truly want to forgive then you have to forget.  When my daughter was younger she would on occasion do something that required discipline.  What I could not do was hold something against her if she had in fact done it before and was punished before.  It would be like having a running tally of incidents and never zeroing it out.  If you forgive something then that needs to settle it.  There's no holding it in reserve to be used against the person at a future date.  Forgiveness is not always easy, but it sure is necessary.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks that people face is the ability to forgive themselves.  They want to beat themselves up for messing up, and this is nothing more then double jeopardy.  First you have to suffer through the mistake, and then you force yourself to suffer through the un-forgiveness by not being able to let go of the mistake.  I've seen people beat themselves up for making a mistake.  I will tell you that beating yourself up is never going to solve anything.  If anything it is simply going to keep you mired down in the garbage of your past mistakes. Once again, if you can't let go of the past, then there isn't going to be a future for you.

As I have shared many times in the past I have had my share of mistakes.  Some big, some, small, but no matter the size or the gravity of the mistake I have made a point of not holding it against myself.  I have learned to forgive myself and in doing so allowed me to move forward in my endeavors.  Those who are unable to forgive will never move forward, and then they will be unable to forgive themselves again for not being able to move forward. It is a vicious cycle and it is one that you do not want to find yourself in.

Forgiveness is truly divine, and forgiveness is something that will set you free, no matter what the situation is.  If each of us were to be paid a dollar for every mistake we had made in life then we would all be millionaires.  If each of us were charged a dollar for each time we were unable to forgive ourselves then we would all be paupers digging around the trash for scraps of food.  Forgiveness is the only way to live, and once you are able to understand this, then and only then will you be able to be the person you were intended to be. I have seen so many people sacrifice their future because they were unable to forgive someone for something that they did, or because they were unable to forgive themselves for something they did.  Either way, forgiveness is the key to your future.

I have heard people tell me and others that there is no way they could ever forgive someone for the thing they did to them.  This is dangerous ground to be treading on I assure you.  If you are unable to forgive, the day will come when you will bring down upon yourself such a reckoning it will make your head spin. All you will be able to do in that moment is wonder what in the world just happened. I know that forgiving someone for something they have done to you which hurt you, and hurt you real bad, is hard to do.  But I also know that forgiveness will open yourself up for blessings.  Given the two options, which one makes more sense?

So here's the bottom line: forgive others, forgive yourself, and forget.  Forget about past hurts, past failures, and past events.  Certainly learn from them, but don't hold on to them.  Past hurts that are not thrown into the deep seas will eventually latch on to you and take you down.   If you know there are people who you have yet to forgive, then simple release the hurt, forgive them, and see if things do not change for you.  You don't have to make a big production out of it, so that others can see you making the grand gesture of forgiving someone.  No, simply release the hurt, release the person, and go on your merry way.  If you can begin to do this, then you will begin to see change in yourself, and when that happens everything else will change for you as well.  Forgive, forget, and move forward.  It is the only way to live.