I used to pride myself on being a forgiving person. But how many of you know that when you pride yourself on doing something, a situation is going to come to make that very hard to do.
If you read my blog then you know the situation about me and my son’s father. If you do not and you want to recap you can read my blog entries here and here.
My circumstance is like a horrific situation on steroids. I thought I had come to forgive him completely, but with him being out of prison, I feel the same type of irritation come up and cause complete and utter chaos.
To give him credit, he has been stepping up as a father. But I cannot even describe the amount of disrespect and absolute disregard that I have had to deal with since I became pregnant.
I thought since he was sorry and he was regretful that perhaps he would be dying to make it up to me. Wrong answer.
I have come to reflect on why it is so important for him to make it up to me, when in all honestly he has been making up to our son.
I have come up with this answer.
When dealing with him I have always made an effort to make our interactions better up until a certain point. I had come to hope that one day he would see that and say
“ Wow I was really a jerk, perhaps I should spend my enter waking life, trying to walk on water and prove that I am no longer that jerk.”
Through several conversations that were rather heated on my part. I come to realize that he is never going to understand the impact of what he did.
When I was at work, and he had the threesome with one of my co-workers, he is never going to see how much of a fool that made me look.
He is never going to understand that when I took his son to prison to see him in the early years, how hurtful it was to see girlfriend number one and two always on the visitation list. And how he preferred to see them over our son.
He is never going to understand how much it hurt to find out that he was still married and that his wife, wished everything including death on our son, and he did nothing to prevent it.
He will never understand how much it hurt, to hear him say, that he does not love our son like his other children.
I can say it a thousand times. I can write a whole freakin book about it (and I did click here).
But it is not going to change the drama that I have to deal with for the next 12 years. And it is not going to change his attitude toward me.
And as a woman, how can I forgive that?
But as a Christian, I have to forgive that?
I do not know the solution to this problem. The only thing that I can do is take it one day at a time. If there is anything that I learned in regards to this situation. I have come to learn that you cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to do.
You cannot make anyone feel anything they do not want to feel. And you cannot make anyone walk a mile in your shoes. Does it make the resentment any less to know this?
Of course not, but as a person who is a Christian, it is what I must do, because I can feel this negativity separating me from God.
How can I ask God for forgiveness, when I cannot forgive others.
I come to think that God puts us in these situations so that we know what it is like to be in His shoes. For us to openly do things to Him, like sinning. Even though we know these things hurt Him, we openly sin in His face and ask for forgiveness, never knowing or understanding how much out actions really hurt Him.
I am convinced overall that this is why God wants us to be Christlike. So that we can understand how hard it is to forgive and love a world who neglects us.
Does that makes sense?
When you really follow God and do what He wants you to do when it is hard, you imagine the life of Jesus.
How he had to turn the other cheek through all the hate, resentment, and gossip. All he wanted to do was what was right, but yet he was meant with hate.
With people who do not understand and those who wanted to use his kindness for weakness.
This may sound extreme. But I can say I have been hated much for no real reason whatsoever. But, I am able to move on. As long as I behaved the way God wanted me to, and I do not have to deal with them on an everyday basis, then I pretty much go out of sight out of mind.
But what do you do, when the very thing that you have resentment toward is dangling in your face. Expecting you to move on and expecting you to forgive, and they blatant disregard for their actions infuriate you even more?
God expects you to forgive. I do not know how I will forgive. I do not know how much time it will take. But I know I must because it is what God wants me to do.
Being a Christian is hard. It means doing what the world thinks is weak and putting on your happy face, when you feel like smacking someone.
It means loving and and praying for those who have done you wrong, even when you do not want to. It means not just saying that you will do it, but actually doing it and believing in it your heart. Something that I know, but something that is still hard to do.
If you read my blog then you know the situation about me and my son’s father. If you do not and you want to recap you can read my blog entries here and here.
My circumstance is like a horrific situation on steroids. I thought I had come to forgive him completely, but with him being out of prison, I feel the same type of irritation come up and cause complete and utter chaos.
To give him credit, he has been stepping up as a father. But I cannot even describe the amount of disrespect and absolute disregard that I have had to deal with since I became pregnant.
I thought since he was sorry and he was regretful that perhaps he would be dying to make it up to me. Wrong answer.
I have come to reflect on why it is so important for him to make it up to me, when in all honestly he has been making up to our son.
I have come up with this answer.
When dealing with him I have always made an effort to make our interactions better up until a certain point. I had come to hope that one day he would see that and say
“ Wow I was really a jerk, perhaps I should spend my enter waking life, trying to walk on water and prove that I am no longer that jerk.”
Through several conversations that were rather heated on my part. I come to realize that he is never going to understand the impact of what he did.
When I was at work, and he had the threesome with one of my co-workers, he is never going to see how much of a fool that made me look.
He is never going to understand that when I took his son to prison to see him in the early years, how hurtful it was to see girlfriend number one and two always on the visitation list. And how he preferred to see them over our son.
He is never going to understand how much it hurt to find out that he was still married and that his wife, wished everything including death on our son, and he did nothing to prevent it.
He will never understand how much it hurt, to hear him say, that he does not love our son like his other children.
I can say it a thousand times. I can write a whole freakin book about it (and I did click here).
But it is not going to change the drama that I have to deal with for the next 12 years. And it is not going to change his attitude toward me.
And as a woman, how can I forgive that?
But as a Christian, I have to forgive that?
I do not know the solution to this problem. The only thing that I can do is take it one day at a time. If there is anything that I learned in regards to this situation. I have come to learn that you cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to do.
You cannot make anyone feel anything they do not want to feel. And you cannot make anyone walk a mile in your shoes. Does it make the resentment any less to know this?
Of course not, but as a person who is a Christian, it is what I must do, because I can feel this negativity separating me from God.
How can I ask God for forgiveness, when I cannot forgive others.
I come to think that God puts us in these situations so that we know what it is like to be in His shoes. For us to openly do things to Him, like sinning. Even though we know these things hurt Him, we openly sin in His face and ask for forgiveness, never knowing or understanding how much out actions really hurt Him.
I am convinced overall that this is why God wants us to be Christlike. So that we can understand how hard it is to forgive and love a world who neglects us.
Does that makes sense?
When you really follow God and do what He wants you to do when it is hard, you imagine the life of Jesus.
How he had to turn the other cheek through all the hate, resentment, and gossip. All he wanted to do was what was right, but yet he was meant with hate.
With people who do not understand and those who wanted to use his kindness for weakness.
This may sound extreme. But I can say I have been hated much for no real reason whatsoever. But, I am able to move on. As long as I behaved the way God wanted me to, and I do not have to deal with them on an everyday basis, then I pretty much go out of sight out of mind.
But what do you do, when the very thing that you have resentment toward is dangling in your face. Expecting you to move on and expecting you to forgive, and they blatant disregard for their actions infuriate you even more?
God expects you to forgive. I do not know how I will forgive. I do not know how much time it will take. But I know I must because it is what God wants me to do.
Being a Christian is hard. It means doing what the world thinks is weak and putting on your happy face, when you feel like smacking someone.
It means loving and and praying for those who have done you wrong, even when you do not want to. It means not just saying that you will do it, but actually doing it and believing in it your heart. Something that I know, but something that is still hard to do.