God, Me and Forgiveness

Wow!!

When you ask God a question,

be prepared for His answer!!!

I asked God how do I pray?

He said talk to me, grab a cup of coffee, visit with me like you do your friends

Read my word...it's Me talking to you!

As I continued my quiet time 

the scriptures that seemed to jump off the page

Lord thank you for the reminders that you hear my cries

and joys...you celebrate with me and you hold me close.

To think about You, Your love

Your redeeming love for me

and

Oh how I learned about forgiveness...

not only seeking forgiveness for my own sins

but in also learning how to forgive those who had hurt me,

I need to seek forgiveness when I sin so that I can keep

my relationship right with the Lord.

And it always feels good when sin has happened

and the slate is wiped clean.

Sometimes I picture 

God has one of these

and my sins are written down

BUT when I seek his forgiveness,

change my ways,

He just wipes the slate clean

and I get to start over!!!!

Isn't that awesome,

when we sin, we seek forgiveness

the slate is wiped clean!!!

and remembering to not sin again!!!

And then forgiving others!

I used to think I could never forgive certain people for certain things they had done to me, wronged me, hurt me

and then I realized forgiving them was not for them,

it was to wipe the slate clean in me

because when I was full of unforgiveness 

I was angry with a Capital A!!!

And I hurt myself but more importantly 

I hurt others

then I saw this verse,

who knows how many times I read it or heard it

but one day I owned it...

I sought forgiveness from those I hurt

(where I could)

and I forgave those who hurt me.

Did it happen over night or once and be done...

absolutely not...

there are still some days

I have to say to God, forgive me for taking that hurt back,

taking that forgiveness back,

help me to forgive each and every day.

One of the many things I learned was that it's hard to be loving

towards others if one is always angry.

I want to love others

as Christ loves me.

Maybe it's because I'm older

or maybe it's because I finally understood,

people do some things because it's the only thing they know,

and yes sometimes, people can just plain be mean

but deep down I 

think people want to love others

because all they really want is to be loved.

Then the question is raised

Does Forgiveness mean Forget?

Some people say yes;

I say sometimes...

I have forgiven my parents/step-parents for how 

they treated me but that doesn't mean I will ever forget 

the bad things that were done or said to me.

Why...because I will never allow them to hurt my own children 

in that way.  That is my job, to protect my children from harm 

if at all possible so that is why I won't forget.

How do you see Forgiveness and Forgetting?