Do you live a forgiven life? This doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes but it is a mindset that requires you to walk as a person who is forgiven thus can’t walk in the past errors. It also requires you to forgive others when they ‘harm’ you. I recently read that forgiving others… doesn’t mean that what happened was OK or that the other person is welcome (still) into your world but what it does mean is that you have made peace with the pain and are ready to let it go. I have no idea who said this but it is a good working definition.
Living as forgiven means that you have to let go. You have to let go of your guilty feelings. Guilty feelings accomplish absolutely nothing unless they are associated with a concerted approach to never repeat the behavior and the attendant thinking that caused the behavior. Yes you were wrong but you can’t afford the luxury of only feeling bad. You will need to use the experience to change – your thinking and your behavior. That is not the easiest thing to do.
Living forgiven means that you have to free the other person from what they did to you. Again you can’t afford the luxury of holding a grudge. Besides, you are the one that is holding the excess baggage, the other person may not even know that you haven’t forgiven them… or care. Your mental health is far more important. As long as you don’t come to a resolution about moving on from what happened the more you will be held captive to that experience. If the other person is truly sorry for what happened then you have a basis to continue the relationship. But… if not, don’t let it cripple you.
Living as forgiven is a mindset and it also must be behavior-based. Both are directed toward yourself and others. Once you realize and accept that you are forgiven it impacts so many other facets of your life. And it is visible. If you are living as forgiven then you are compassionate. Compassion, though definitely a feeling, is an action, a desire to relieve the situation for the benefit of the other person. You feel compassion which is translated into compassionate behavior. Living as forgiven is freeing and will lead you into a much different journey.
