Receive forgiveness to give forgiveness.
–Mother Teresa, Thirsting for God
Turning Toward Love (quote)
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lamehousewife
That’s a really new thought for me. I have to let that sink in.
It is about receiving forgiveness from God so that in turn you can give forgiveness to others. Matthew 18. That might help. God bless…
It’s much easier for me to forgive than to receive God’s forgiveness.
Hi Linnea,
I will get back to you on this one as soon as I finish this other thing. I understand what you mean, though. I want to share you my experience with this same thing…give me a few…
Okay.
Okay. This is my experience with being able to forgive others, but not myself, so I don’t know if it pertains to you or not. This is me.
This opened me up for being the doormat. I took a lot of criticism and thought I should be treated that way while the other person I just allowed to live in a pretend innocence.
Then, it opened me up to being manipulated into engaging in sin with another because I was willing to take the pain of the consequence of that choice because I was willing to be blamed for it in its entirety. I thought I deserved to be treated like a slut, then abandoned, called names, etc. because I was not good enough for anything else. This was keeping me from admitting that my sin was grave in a sense. Because if I admitted the gravity of my sin, I would have to see that he was just as involved in it as I was. It is a terribly uncomfortable place to be.
But Jesus kept working on me. So when I finally said yes I did it AND yes we did it, I began to feel a new sense of freedom. I began to turn from the memories of those criticisms which would daily attack and haunt me. I was abandoned, and I thought I deserved it, so I let the criticisms remain to remind me. But I began to hear Jesus say, “I forgive you. I forgive you.” This other man did not forgive me. That is why he walked away, but Jesus did, and that’s when I started to actually feel healed. I was operating below the dignity of a person. I was allowing this person to look at me as if I was lying always on the floor, worthy only to be stepped on, worthy only to receive his acid. Jesus helped me to stand again because before that I was in a position of despair. The person of pride knows how to take advantage of this. Both are extreme, both resist God’s healing touch, but both do it in a different way.
I know now that I am on equal footing with my neighbor. I had made my neighbor, this man, my god since he seemed above me. BUT Jesus said, no, you must even forgive yourself. You are a person, too. Forgive yourself as I have forgiven you. You are the one keeping Me from healing you. I love you. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me, He says so gently.
And then, He helped me to truly forgive that person too. I had been denying that the person was hurting me, so I denied that he sinned. I was even denying just anger. That was not real forgiveness. It was denial. Forgiveness is a much better deal. It’s much deeper and much harder to do. It definitely cannot be done without God. I am allowed to wear the Armor of God to make sure I don’t fall into sin with others. Before then, I was fighting with nothing, not discerning out of a fear of being judgmental, because I thought I didn’t deserve the Armor, nor did I believe I could have the Sword. Jesus makes me worthy because He is totally worthy, the only worthy One to have. The only One worthy enough to wash away my sins.
So, that’s it. That’s my experience with those few little words: Receive forgiveness to give forgiveness.
God bless…
That’s really profound and poignant and I know exactly what you mean. My whole life, I have felt like I needed to be perfect to be loved. It’s difficult to let 50 years of that go but I am working on it. I don’t feel that way so much about the people in my life but I still feel that way about God though I try not to. Thank you for these amazing words of encouragement.
Timely. All morning I’ve had the following rattling around my head as a follow up to something I heard on our Catholic radio station this morning. It was along the lines of “What do you possess that everyone wants but is the hardest for you to give?”
Forgiveness.
Excellent!
Great share
Thank you