Finding Love & Forgiveness in the mud

Today I got a note from someone basically digging up all the crap in my past and trying to make me relive it. I actually was a little bit angry about it. It’s easy to start slinging mud when someone starts slinging it at me. But the thing is that nothing ever really gets resolved in events like that.


I could lie awake at night thinking about all the ways I could have changed the choices I made. I could have been a better daughter, mother, friend, girlfriend… I could have, and even as much as I try, many times now I fail. I’m not perfect, and if I was, I wouldn’t need Jesus. But I’m not perfect and I do need Him.

In times when the mud starts slinging, I look at how dirty I am. I look at how dirty I was, and it’s not pretty, and it makes me sick. But there’s no point in returning to the vomit and re-eating it (Proverbs 26:11). I am thankful for God’s grace, and while I always strive to live more like Him, I am thankful to live under it.

I have learned, I take responsibility for my mistakes, I seek forgiveness from those I have hurt, and from God, I repent, I learn, and I move forward in His lessons of love and grace.

I have also learned in lessons like this how much it sucks to have things of our past brought up… I don’t like it when others do it to me, and so I strive and will continue to strive to not do it to others. If we believe the Word of God to be true, that in Christ we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and if it is true that God has taken our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, and we are supposed to live our like Jesus, then we (I!!!!) shouldn’t be mud-slinging either, and we should forgive too. Which isn’t always easy when hurt is involved.

I have learned to ask myself when I am angry or mad, what is really the heart of this issue? If hurt and/or unforgiveness is found as the root, it is up to me (no one else) to dig it up, and destroy it with love and forgiveness.

So today, my heart will etch the lesson of forgiving myself and others. And living a life of forgiveness just like Jesus.

Psalm 103:11-13
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;