Learning to Forgive: How I Learned to Let the Small Things Go

I used to be one of those people who was mad at the world. Little things would irritate me and it was extremely hard to please me. To make matters worse, I spent the majority of my time comparing myself to others. So, if you gave me something great I couldn’t recognize how great it was because I was so busy focusing on what the person next to me had. You could give me a present worth a million dollars and I would find some dissatisfaction in it because it wasn’t worth two million.

The tiniest little things would upset me to the point of being suicidal. I had built up so much frustration and emotional pain but hadn’t stopped to properly deal with the hurt. When you don’t forgive the hurt from your past, it can easily seep into other parts of your life by affecting your ability to maintain proper relationships.

As I wrote about before (Click here to read), a lot of my hurt came from my high school period of isolation. I went through stages where I was picked on, excluded, and treated horribly by many of my classmates and even some teachers. I remember this one time when my teacher threw my books off my desk and the classmates around me laughed. That situation amongst others left me tormented for years.

Instead of dealing with this hurt, I let it creep into other parts of my life. I spent years resenting my sister and even my mother for the smallest things. I would also lash out at others for no good reason. I can remember this one time where I chased my sister around the house with a plunger because she wouldn’t give me the remote to the TV. Crazy right? Why would anyone get so mad over a remote? Do you see what I mean? When dealing with people like this, it’s never the problem at hand. It’s always something so much greater that has yet to be healed.

I finally got rid of my pain by letting go. I let go of all the grief, the anguish, and the insecurities. I let go and I let God. If you don’t let go, God can’t allow you to be healed. I didn’t want to just let go though, I wanted that once negative space to be filled. So, I asked God to remove all the pain and replace it with His love and peace. I spent time searching scriptures that taught me how to be slow to anger and peaceful. The more I dived into the Word of God, the easier it became to combat a negative situation with the positive energy of God’s love.

If someone is rude to you for no reason, instead of lashing back at them, pray for them. That person is not upset that you didn’t get their coffee on time to them or whatever else, they are mad that someone didn’t love them, that someone raped them, that someone abused them, or that someone did them wrong and never apologized. Instead of taking their problems up with the one who did them wrong, they carry them around on their shoulders. They choose to make the lives of everyone else around them miserable, especially those that love them most. This was my case with my sister. She wanted so bad to have a relationship with me, but I would just continuously push her away because I was mad at the world for something that was never even her or the world’s fault.

Why do we blame those we love for those that hurt us? To this day, my sister and I are still working on our relationship. However, if I could take all those years back and turn them into love I would. I missed out on valuable time of being a big sister. Now, she’s an adult and I can’t be there for her like I want to be because I wasn’t there for her when I should have been. If I try to give her advice, most of the time she doesn’t want to hear it because I didn’t always set the platform to show her that my advice was worth hearing. Now, I must suffer the consequences and patiently wait for her to completely trust my ability to love her with wisdom and care.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. If something is hurting you, give it to God. It will sneak into your other relationships without you even realizing it. On the other hand, if someone hurts you, be there for them. Even if you didn’t deserve the hurt, love them. That person’s anger should show you they need your love more than you know. Be the bigger person and step out on love for those that do you wrong. Christ didn’t just die for those that love Him, He died for those that hated Him too.

My book I Believe in God, Now What? reveals my past battles with alcohol abuse, weed addiction, and rape in an effort to help others find forgiveness, love, and healing in Christ. Read more about the book here.

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Love,

Jordone

Jordonewrites@gmail.com

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