More about Forgiveness-Part 3

There is much more to talk about as we consider the process and need of forgiveness. We’ll wrap it up for the week by understanding the setbacks in our process of forgiveness.

**You were hoping you wouldn’t see them again for a while (or maybe never), but there they are.

**You realized you have to talk to the last person on earth you want to talk to.

**You are simply reminded of them, and the hurt they caused, by a song on the radio, or a familiar street or building.

What do we do when we made the choice to forgive, but all those painful emotions resurface when we run into them, or when someone brings up their name in a conversation???

Jim Marshall, our Celebrate Recovery director, mentioned a great practice of forgiveness we can do when we see the person that hurt us. He said, “Just remind yourself, oh yea, I already forgave them.”

Every time the emotions swell, we don’t have to go face that person and tell them we forgive them “AGAIN.” But we do need to remind ourselves that we did, in fact, forgive them.

Pain will resurface, and that’s normal. It happens to me. I just remember I already forgave them and invite God to help me in that forgiveness process again.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:13-14 NIV)