Forgiveness

My life right now is pretty confusing. I am finding out who my true friends are and am finding out who I thought were my friends. Over the past few years I have had friends who have walked out of my life. I have had friends who have said that they never want to talk to ever again. I have had friends that moved. I have had friends who I thought were in my circle of best friends but I am finding out that they are turning out to be only acquaintances.

My friends have such an impact on my life. They are always there for me -- at least my two best friends are. I am finding that the more I depend upon friends and just people in general that I am more likely to get hurt. We are all humans and we will let others down and will hurt other not meaning to. At the beginning of this one situation I thought that I could just get through it with the love and encouragement of people. Boy let me tell you I was wrong about that! All I got out of doing that was getting hurt even worse and having the hurt and unforgiveness towards the other person be dragged out even further. It took about a month after what happened for me to totally forgive this person. I thought that if I kept telling myself that I'd forgiven the person that I might actually believe it. No. God knows me better than that, He knows me better than I know myself. He knows that I listen better when He talks through other people and that is what He did. I was sitting there in youth group one Sunday evening and the person that was leading it that night (see, we don't have a youth minister at the moment. So we have loving adults that volunteer week after week.) and he was talking about forgiveness and doing everything you can to live at peace with everyone as far as it depends upon you. And it felt like I was the only in the room, God knew that I needed this at that moment. It was in this moment that I knew in my heart that I had not totally forgiven this person and that I needed to forgive them for everything and I also needed to love on them. I left that night just about in tears -- I didn't feel like crying there where everyone would ask me what was wrong. When I got home and was by myself I just broke down. I prayed that God would help me to forgive this person and that I could show love towards them even though I knew that they would never show it back towards me. I asked God to forgive me for not going to Him first and to forgive me for not forgiving the other person. A few days after this I felt the Lord telling me to put my feelings into action. So I prayed about what God wanted me to do. I got on my computer and started writing an email to this person. I told them that I was sorry for the way I've acted towards them lately and I asked for forgiveness about that. Then I told them that I forgave them for all the stuff they had said/done and I said some other stuff that I felt the Lord telling me to say to this person. After I sent the email to the person I felt a peace that only God can give us. I cannot remember the last time I truly felt that peace.


To the person who I am referring to: Jesus tells us to love and pray for everyone. So through Christ' love I love you. I pray everyday that you are doing well and I also pray that God give you the peace that He has given me. I pray that in Christ you will love everyone and never hate anyone.. I pray that no matter what happens, that you will be able to forgive everyone for anything the say and/or do. I pray that no matter what happens that you will put all your trust in God. I pray that you will never turn your back on the only person that will NEVER turn His back to you: Jesus Christ. I guess that this is the end of a friendship that I was so sure would last. I guess that I have to say goodbye to a friend that I was so sure would always be there for me. I guess God only wanted us to be friends for a little while. I guess He thought that we could learn something from the other person. And just maybe later in life we might end up as friends again. We never know, do we? I hope and pray that you follow your heart and listen to God. If God is telling you to do something but the world is telling you to do something else, listen to God. You may not like how it feels right then and there but in the end you will be glad that you listened to Him. I promise.