Forgiveness, Part 1 of 6

The theme of this many-part post is found at http://www.recoveringgrace.org/2013/07/a-true-shepherds-heart .

"God had become, in my mind, a god who demanded excellent Christian performance. When I excelled at the performance, I had no doubt that I was loved and accepted by Him. But soon the time came when circumstances fell apart all around me and shattered dreams threatened to tear me to shreds. I began to wonder if God had abandoned me. Later I realized it was the formulas and promises . . . that had failed me in my darkest hour. The legalism that had been engrained throughout my teen years came around to crush me in my time of need, and the formulas I had learned did not rescue me when I needed them the most. . . . Faithful church attendance and Bible study did not prevent wounds from a spiritually abusive situation. Doing everything I knew to please God did not remove a deep, dark depression that lingered for a very long time. It was then that the many principles . . . mocked and condemned me, saying if I had just done this or not done that then I wouldn’t be hurting this way. It was then and only then that I clung for dear life to the one thing I still believed to be true: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

Ah, so true. This last week I have been dealing with anger and unforgivenesss trying to raise its ugly head. I ran across a former friend’s blog—which ironically she started within a month of when I started blogging. I guess after all these years, we still think alike! My fault. I didn’t exactly stumble upon it by accident, but as I read it, I just started to feel so angry. This person had “ruined my life” and yet has gone on with their life while mine is still so much unchanged because I hadn’t put as much effort as I could have into moving past it, mostly because I was still so bound by those formulas and promises. It bothered me that I could think that I have forgiven and still find so much anger.

You’re probably laughing and saying that every teenager thinks that their life is ruined so what was the big deal, that I should still be hurting over it sixteen years later? Well, I want to laugh too, but I still can’t.

To be continued. . .