Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made and forget your past.
Kenneth E Hagin
Love forgets. Unless you forget about your mistakes and failures, you haven’t forgiven yourself.
The past can feel like a weight, like fetters holding you down, preventing you from moving forward. It can seem difficult to let go. Trust me, I know. It’s often easier said than done.
However, it’s highly crucial that for one to be able to take the next steps in life and love, you need to give yourself adequate time to process and heal through painful memories and traumatic experiences. How long would be enough is a subjective question and thus varies among individuals, but it’s certainly a work that must be done.
When you fail to do this, you find yourself walking into something new with recurring side effects from those previous things.
- First, you might unknowingly judge and relate present situations based on previous happenstance which would be unfair and sometimes inaccurate.
- Secondly, you could find yourself bringing up and recalling those events unnecessarily to the chagrin and annoyance of those with you in the present. Constantly relating the past with the present often deters the future.
A telltale sign to know the healing work is done and you’ve adequately forgiven yourself is when any recollection of the memories no longer bring you pain or a feeling of resentment. That’s when you know you’ve truly let go.
They say that time heals all wounds. That’s a half-truth. Time alone does nothing for a fact. You would need to do the work of grieving through and walking towards your wholeness, and finding completion in not yourself, a job, something or someone new, but in God. If you do nothing but simply let time pass by, you would realise that nothing changes. Time constantly flows, but if we don’t move with it, we’ll remain stuck in a previous period. It helps along the way to stay focused on the positives and do away with the negatives. I’m not saying view stuff with rose-coloured glasses. We would have to inevitably deal with acceptance of flaws and every imperfection, but still choose to grow beyond self-blaming or fault-finding.
It can be hard at times, to be thankful for everything that happens to us or that we let happen to us, but through everything, there’s something to be thankful for.
Every day may not be good… but there’s something good in every day.
Alice Morse Earle
Even the broken can be made whole again so that it’s restored to a state of unbrokenness. This healing miracle doesn’t come alone through self-effort but the power of Christ. He mends broken hearts, sowing back the pieces together, restoring and healing every form of brokenness. He forgives us and gives us the power to forgive ourselves and others. He also makes us complete in Him.
It’s important to give yourself breaks, to go on personal retreats and journey into rediscovery rather than jumping into the next relationship or career move. Taking time to purposefully tackle the baggage will ensure you find freedom again. Staying focused on our faith is essential, and this helps to fine-tune the lessons, virtues and character development that would ensue from our life experiences.
We don’t want to be bitter, broken people hardened by life. We want to be unbroken vessels transformed into something unimaginably more beautiful than we were, ready for all that God has in store for us.
I learned of a word called “kintsukuroi”. It means to repair with gold. It’s a Japanese word that applies in pottery. It’s the art of repairing broken pottery works with liquid gold. The symbolism is the belief that something which was once broken can be beautified even further despite its cracks.
Life or love could try and break us, but God uses these things to make us even stronger. He brings forth beauty out of the pain and mess. When the going gets tough and the tough have to keep going, He sustains and holds us from falling.
Love and Grace,
© Zizi, 2021.
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Life Lessons With Zizi 
Yes you’re absolutely right, it’s always good to at some point in one’s life to learn and unlearn,let go of things and even people who either have hurt you or have outlived their usefulness in your life or simply put; you have outgrown their friendship or maybe everyone has moved on.
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It’s definitely important to evaluate these things regularly. Thank you as always for sharing your candid thoughts. Light hugs🤗.
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