There are certain times in your life where you feel like you have an epiphany. Like the clouds clearing, and the sun coming out and shining down on you and you think to yourself oh my God there it is… the answer I didn’t even know I was looking for.
Well I watched a movie on Mother’s Day evening that gave me the same reaction, and I feel the need to share.
The movie was called “The Shack” starring Sam Worthington.
It’s about a man whose young daughter is kidnapped and murdered. He, of course, is beyond devastated, and he blames God for not saving her. In reality, his relationship with God has been fractured since childhood because of his inability to escape an abusive father.
Watching this movie and how he healed his relationship with God, and was able to start healing from the loss of his daughter through a series of events, really spoke to me. I mean I sat there watching the movie with one half of my brain while the other half was sorting out the epiphany I was having.
I’m not going to review the movie, or explain it further, because I want you to watch it, but I wanted to touch on what the movie said to me, and why it spoke to me.
One of my biggest faults is that I hold a grudge forever. It’s really one of my worst personality traits; my inability to forgive the people who have done me the most harm in my life. I hold onto the anger, the rage, the hurt, and I am completely incapable of forgiving them for what they have done to me. All I can think about is wanting them to hurt like they hurt me. Wanting some form of revenge that would possibly make me feel better.
For those who know me very well, and I mean 20+ years or more, these people know that I am a religious person. I have a special relationship with my Lord to where I don’t feel the need to go to a church because I believe He is with me all the time. If I sit down and speak to Him, He is there no matter where I’m at. My failure despite all that I believe in is in not giving my pain over to God.
However, now I realize that like the man in the movie I have a fractured relationship with my Lord as well. Have had apparently most of my life. My inability to forgive the people who have hurt me most in my lifetime, and my ignorance, have allowed me to believe that I am in the position of being the “Judge”. The one who makes the decision on whether the persons who hurt me pays for their crimes for eternity or not. Turns out that’s not my job. Now I realize that. My job, it seems, is to forgive them for what they have done to me and let God sort it all out in the end.
It doesn’t mean I have to immediately let go of the anger at what they did to me, nor do I have to forget what I’ve been through, but I do have to release all of the heavy baggage that’s weighed down my heart and my soul for so long because it’s not my burden to carry. I am not the judge, jury, or executioner.
God knows what these people have done to me, and how bad they hurt me, and He will be the one they have to stand before in judgment.
House Cat in Paradise 