Forgiving....

So last Sunday my friend Louie talked about forgiving other and how important it is. He read the story about the Unforgiving Debtor. I have heard this story a bunch of times but it never kicked my ass like it did Sunday. Here's the part that killed me... (Matthew 18:34-35)"Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his debt. 'That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.'"

It scared me a little and it made me realize that I have a ton of unforgiveness inside of me. I don't want that! So then my thought process was how to I get rid of this...pray...yeah, but when I was talking to my friends about it, I made a comment like "how do I start forgiving someone I hate? I hate hearing their name, and I have nothing nice to say about them." One of my friends said "sounds like there is a lot of uglyness inside of you..."

So here's my thoughts today, maybe the beginning of forgiving is not hating. I've been realizing, its so draining/unhealthy to hate, but the more you do it, the easier it is, but it is still very bad. But I have been realizing its not about what they have done to me as much as what is going on inside of me. I can control me only. When I was talking to my friends I wasn't expecting the problem to be me...I was expecting that maybe I need to learn to tolerate them better for being so mean, or something like that. nope...its all me.

So I'm gonna try to blog about my process...right now it looks like this: I'm not going to speak those negative words. And I have people to hold me accountable if I do. :D