“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Colossians 3:13-14

Forgiveness is hard. To be fully transparent, I struggle in this area of my life. When the Lord put it on my heart to write about this tough subject, I thought maybe He got me confused with Blakely or Alice. They might be better at this one! But as I prayed, I felt more and more led to open my heart and share my struggle. I’ve learned that when I open up about dark areas in my life, God brings them to light and the enemy loses power.

When someone hurts me to the core, it’s hard to forgive. According to this verse, we are called not only to forgive but to forget. Say what?!? Yea, this command isn’t an easy one my friends. Think about when you sin and ask for forgiveness, our Father not only completely forgives you but erases it from His memory (Hebrews 8:12). We are commanded to forgive like that.

We cannot do this on our own. Our sinful flesh tries to convince us that this concept doesn’t make sense, this can’t be right. To forgive and forget is a supernatural act and it can only be done through Jesus. We have to give him our hurt and in return, he fills those places in our hearts with His love. We might have to give it to Him over and over but with time, the wound will be healed by God’s grace.

When we clothe ourselves with God’s love, we can fight any battle; even the battle of unforgiveness. I pray that today, you make the deliberate decision to forgive like Jesus. Give your hurt to your Father who loves you unconditionally. He will transform that hurt into healing. If He can do this in my heart, I know He will do the same in yours. All you have to do is call on Him.