Forgive Yourself

As many of us have, I’ve had a few both business, and personal, relational struggles and had a handful of road blocks come up with people. Overall, I’ve done a pretty good job of forgiving and forgetting and moving on without a grudge or sour feelings. However, the one person I was unaware that I needed to forgive and has become my most difficult forgiveness battle is forgiving “me.” Yes, I said forgive “myself.”

I like to look up what words really mean so I often go straight to the dictionary. Part of Merriam Websters definition of forgiveness states “to cease to feel resentment against.” For many of our mistakes, we have a tendency to sentence ourselves to long term turmoil thinking that it will prevent us from slipping up again. When in reality, by not letting go, we in turn hang on and never move on, and, end up making that very mistake again. The idea is to get past it. We can pause, and learn from our mistakes but then we must turn the page. Failure is actually success if we learn from it and move forward. Failure is failure if we wallow in it and remain there. We will all make mistakes, some with more measurable consequences than others. When you hold yourself on trial, remember that your true judge is God and he is a God of grace, not performance.

The world we live in essentially revolves around the word “performance.” If your kids don’t perform well in school, they fail. If they don’t perform well on the basketball court, they don’t get much playing time. If you don’t perform well at work, you could potentially get fired. If your investments don’t perform well in the market, you’ll lose money. There are so many opportunities to come up short, to miss the mark, to fail. Failing is a fact of life. But don’t wallow in it, don’t remain there. Forgive yourself for your mistakes or shortcomings, and try again.

Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company was far from an instant success. In fact he failed miserably, losing everything twice before finding success in launching what is today the leading automobile manufacturer in the world. Facing reality of his second failure, he uttered this powerful statement: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time, more intelligently.” He began again and there’s enough blue Ford emblems on every street in America to tell us he succeeded.

Commit to begin again. Forgive yourself when you fail, let life teach you a new lesson with each fall, but get back up and keep living, free of the weight of unforgiveness. Forgive yourself.

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The Face in the Mirror

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