Forgive and Forget...Really?

I am a hard person to like, always have been and probably always will be. I'm not a people pleaser and tend to hold grudges for a long period of time. Most women find me abrasive and harsh, I think mostly because women can't handle hearing the ugly truth, and this leads to few friends. I used to, literally on purpose, see what I could do to make people mad or if someone made me mad I would hold on to that hurt for ..... ever. Forgive and forget is something that my mom used to tell me, and I used to say ....ahh, no! Because really do we ever forget, let alone forgive, I don't think so. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the 'thing' that started the whole mess to begin with - even if there is some sort of forgiveness - I remember!!! I'm like the perverbial elephant...never really forgets anything. I also have the gift of carrying someone elses grudge. If a person hurts (emotionally mind you) a loved one of mine (friend or family) I immediately take up the offense. I become the avenger, even if the loved one isn't offended. It's truly a gift that I acquired (sarcasism enhanced here). These parts of me have ebbed over the past couple of years, I mean things still get to me, and I still get mad and hold a grudge for a while but I usually get over it very quickly and, whether or not spoken, I do forgive...altho the forgetting part....ya not so much, at least not yet.

Just recently I have been dealing with an anger issue that has become very, very deep seeded in my soul. I mean to tell you this anger and truly hatred has settled in deep in me and it fires me up when I have to talk about it to anyone. This person has done nothing to me, not directly, but to Lizzie directly and I, being the taker upper of offenses, have taken up the offense. (For those of you who don't know Lizzie is Kaleb's friend who was kicked out of her house in December and Kaleb came to me and Lee and asked if she could stay with us. Out of compassion we said yes.) Lizzie has been in our home for 6+ months with no problems for us, none that aren't unusual for a teenager anyway, and although we have been telling Lizzie that she needs to mend things with her family, as of late, I don't know if I (or Lee) really believe what we are saying. I know for me the things I tell Lizzie are things that if it was a direct offense to me I would never do. And yet I press her to move the way of forgiveness, when I would (in a former life) like to go to her mother and begin a fight (physical fight). For whatever reason, one I can't decipher, Lizzie's mother seems (or so it appears to me) to be doing everything she can to destroy everything Lizzie does or plans to do. When she found out Lizzie had worked all spring to become declared independent for college, she called the college that accepted Lizzie and told them she wasn't truly independent, thereby stopping Lizzie's chances at college this year. This is just one incident of many that I am angered about. And so anger and unforgiveness settled into my soul strongly in my heart over this woman's plight to offend and hurt Lizzie.

Then last night when I was driving home, alone for the first time a while, I had out -of nowhere ( and I do mean out of nowhere because I know my mind didn't come up with this)- ...I don't even know what to call it except a word. A 'word' I didn't want to hear and one that kept resounding in my head... are you ready for this!!!????? Good because I'm not ready to tell you...but here it goes, 'why are you not forgiving this woman?' So, that was it it was on!!! For 2.5 miles I was on fire! There is no way at all that I was forgiving that woman at all no way no how....and this went on for a long time...well 2.5 miles anyway. It even egged me all night last night until I got on Crosswalk.com and looked up 'forgive'. And the 2nd & 3rd reference were Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you to. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. This was not what I was looking for ...not at all!!! And, this little part left out, while I was on my way home, I was feeling the desire (and actually have all the words) to write Lizzie's mom a letter. Whether she'll read it or not, I don't know, but I have most of it written in my head already...AUGH!!!!! The first thing this morning...same thing!! How am I suppose to work and get thru the day, already a weepy day, with this stuff running thru my head??? So I started writing it here. And believe it or not, weepy and all, laughing with Lizzie and crying over facebook, its starting to make a little sense. I have issues with Lizzie's mom because I can't wrap my head around what her mind thinks, I have over the past years stopped reliving my children's mistakes and tried to keep them in the past where they belong and find all the good in them, and Lizzie's mom does not. I go and see Kaleb all the time, and she lives less than 1 mile away and has made no effort to come and see Lizzie, so my mind does not wrap well around the way she thinks...but something about me writing this letter to Lizzie's mom is suppose to make me better, not her. It's not meant to bring guilt on her- or I don't think it is - and its not meant to make her instantly change - I hope it does - but it's for me. Remember I said I think it makes a little sense, not complete sense. So today, against my worst judgment, I'm going to write the letter, ask a friend - someone not related to the problem - to read it, make sure I'm not my typical nasty self, and send it. It'll probably spark something I'm not ready for, but then again, I don't have a total idea of what this is yet, but I am hoping that it will make sense....sooner rather than later....here goes nothing - or is it everything. I guess this is only the first part of my title, because I don't think forgetting is as close.

So I guess the question is, are you holding onto something too? What is it that you're being told to let go of for you own good and are still holding on to? I bet you know, I bet you even know what you're suppose to do but don't want to do it for fear of looking like the weaker party. Maybe what you're suppose to do is for you not the other person.