Cleaning House

I am still battling with my emotions over this situation. I am constantly struggling with the fight between playing the "name game" and staying "level-headed." You know that saying "What doesn't kill you simply makes you stronger?" I know that this isn't going to kill me...and that the only way it could possibly make me stronger is to rely on Christ.

It is when I find myself tearing up and getting angry at the same time that God reminds me that I am not perfect either.

I have spent most of the day today cleaning. When I clean...I "think." It's like...when I'm cleaning house, so is God. Sometimes I let Him freely "re-organize" and other times I find myself shuffling around what He's trying to "tidy up."

After I grew weary (literally) of my cleaning, I sat down and opened the book I've been reading, "The Gift of Change." It's been a few weeks since I have picked it up (I'm terrible) but once I turned to the chapter I was to begin, I had to laugh. "From Focus on Guilt to Focus on Innocence." Are you kidding me?!

..."Forgiveness can be very hard when someone has acted horribly. But the truth, whether we care to admit it, is that someone did what we too might have done if we had been as freaked out by something as they were: if we had been as scared of something as they were: if we had been as limited in our understanding as they were. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable or that we shouldn't have boundaries and standards. It doesn't even mean we have to stay in contact with that person. But it does mean we can come to understand that humanity is not perfect. Just knowing that-that we all do the best we know how with the skills we have at the time-is a realization that opens the heart to more enlightened understanding. And that's what we're on the earth for, because in the presence of people with enlightened understanding, darkness ultimately turns into light."

"Forgiveness begins, as do all issues of enlightenment, as merely an intellectual concept that has yet to make its "journey without distance" from the head to the heart. ...It seems to run counter to reason that we would choose to see the innocence in a person beyond there mistake, yet that is the visionary, as well as most powerful, aspect of faith. Our experience of a person might be that they mistreated us, while our faith is that they remain an innocent child of God."

"In any given moment, the universe is primed to give us new life, to begin again, to create new opportunities, to miraculously heal situations, to change all darkness to light and fear to love. ...Our job is to take a deep breath, slow down, surrender all thoughts of past or future, and let the Holy Instant shine forth in our awareness. God is not daunted by our nightmares of guilt; He is ever awake to how beautiful we are. He made us that way, and so it is."

"No matter what people might have done to us-and there are people who are not nice in this world, who do terrible things-it is still our option to forgive, to rise above, to be defenseless, and also important to search our own minds and hearts for ways we might have helped create or attract their darkness. The fact that other people were bad in a situation doesn't necessarily mean you were all good."

"Being caught in anger, judgment, and blame is disempowering; it throws us out of our center; it puts us at the effect of the lovelessness of someone else. To be there for a while is one thing; to stay there and try to justify it is wrong-minded and will not lead to peace. Spirituality challenges us to detach from the purely personal, emotional aspects of a situation-in order to uplift ourselves to higher ground. That doesn't mean we don't feel our pain, our anger, our despair. But there is a way to hold such feelings in a sacred rather than chaotic way, so they heal us rather than poison us."

"God could more than compensate for whatever damage had been done, for "what man intends for evil, God intends for good." As long as I held back my forgiveness, however, I held back my own healing as well. If I could forgive what had happened to me, I would become deeper and more prepared to serve Him. It is none of my business what happens to others who were involved in this drama. The only drama that matters is the one in my own head and heart. If I can come to understand that no lies, no injustice, no transgression of any kind can begin to touch who I essentially am, then I will receive the greatest prize of all: I will learn who I essentially am."

Incredible.

I know this may not make much sense to some of you...not knowing or rather "understanding" where all of this is coming from. However on this very day...in this very hour...these words are healing to me.

Forgiving those who are undeserving doesn't seem logical. And I'm sure that on this side of my life, I will never have the opportunity to look someone in the eye and offer my forgiveness. Yet I know that in my heart, it is something I am called to do. For my sake, for his sake, and for the sake of my son.

And the realization that I truly have the best part of my son's dad...makes it easier to do!