When you think about forgiveness it seems pretty simple of a concept to grasp. I often tell people that I have forgiven my ex for the divorce and other things but then I catch myself wishing that God would punish her for what she did. Kind of harsh isn’t it?
I have been divorced for over 2 years now and felt I was making pretty good progress on moving on. This morning I woke up thinking about my exwife and how I wish bad things would happen to her. I know exactly where these feelings are coming from, because I miss my daughter. If you have gotten to know me at all you know that the one thing I hate is not being able to see her everyday.
So anyhow, I am sitting at church and I begin to read the definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness is “deciding that someone who has wronged you doesn’t have to pay.” They don’t have to pay!!! Come on now, that just isn’t fair! But it is true. If God never forgave me for all of my transgressions I would end up in a very HOT dark place. I have been forgiven so much and yet I appear to be holding on to some unforgiveness towards my ex.
To be honest I don’t think I need to go all the way back to the drawing board on this one. I think that there are times when it is easier to forgive than others and I think that we can come under attack by the enemy. In my heart I truly want to forgive and I think I have come a long ways in that department. But on ocassion I think my flesh and spirit are going to have to battle it out.
Forgiveness doesn’t always come over night but if you work at it and give it up to God it will come. We aren’t going to be perfect and sometimes feelings creep up that might make us feel angry but that doesn’t mean we aren’t making progress. Each day has its challenges and the key is to keep pressing on.
When it comes to forgiveness we typically think of God forgiving us not the other way around. I’m not exactly sure how that works because how can you forgive when you haven’t been wronged? Needless to say I found myself blaming God for not saving my marriage. I blamed God for me not being able to see my child each day and I blamed God for allowing me to marry “that woman”. God knew from the beginning how this was going to play out and He is all powerful so why didn’t He do something to stop it?
For weeks I pleaded with God to intervene and I would get so angry when He wouldn’t. I had lost all hope! A pastor friend had to explain to me that God has given each and every one of us free-will and He wouldn’t force my wife to change her mind. He wasn’t going to simply make all the pain and all the bad choices go away. We need to give God permission to work in our lives and if we don’t then He won’t.
Even though I clearly had no foundation to blame God I still had to forgive God and myself for the marriage failing. I had to move forward with my life and stop living in the past. I had to stop assigning blame and stop being resentful. This is what God wants and if you have ever been around someone with a victim mentality you know how depressing that can be I simply would not allow myself to become a victim so I had to let God work in my life and to do that I had to forgive.
You would think after 2 years Iwould be all better and skipping down the street without a care in the world. Well I guess first off I don’t skip and secondly that is not happening. I am beginning to wonder if I can be any more selfish than I am. My ex has to work 7 days a week just to make it and I get to spend a lot more time with the kid because of it. Someone got me thinking and now all of a sudden I realized that I have been selfish. I want my little girl ALL the time. Sometimes I think that what is going on in my ex’s life is well deserved but then I think about what would happen to me if I got what I deserve. I don’t want to go there!!
All I know is our little girl loves her mom and wants to be with her mom, yes it baffles me but I have got to be there for her and do the best I can to not let my feelings get in the way.
It has almost been 2 years since my ex left and I find myself getting angry again at her. I don’t know it has to do with the holiday season coming and not having someone close to spend it with or the fact that maybe I never fully forgave her. There is nothing more I want than to be over this divorce and meet someone that is right for me. But that can’t happen until I am completely over my ex.
How can I pity this woman while at the same time be angry at her? Sometimes I think she deserves the hardship she is going through but then I see her and I pity her for what she is going through. Then I find myself jealous because she seems to have found a new love for God and turned away from her old ways while I feel stagnant in my relationship with God. I am sure a mess… aren’t I?
