Forgiveness is a powerful tool. If you allow anger and other negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you might find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice. But if you can forgive someone who angered you, you might both learn from the situation. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to behave exactly as you want at all times.. something that caught my attention.
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sober: showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy, emotion, or prejudice
IM STRUGGLING WITH FORGIVNESS MYSELF...THANK YOU FOR SHAREING PUT EVERYLITTLE BIT TOGETHER AN SOONER OR LATER WE WONT STRUGGLE WITH IT OUR LIVES ARE LIKE PUZZLES SOME ARE EASY OTHERS ARE THE HARDEST.....THANK YOU
Don't know about ya'll, but here we still say the "Lord's Prayer" to end our meetings ...
In this prayer to the Heavenly Father, we ask for 'our trespasses to be forgiven AS WE FORGIVE others, their trespasses' ... meaning we ask to be forgiven of our short-comings and faults and 'wrong-doings' and in turn for being forgiven, we forgive those who have wronged us (either real or imagined) ...
For us not to forgive, is to hold a resentment ... and for an alcoholic to hold a resentment puts us in infinitely grave danger .... and we all know now, to hold onto a resentment is like holding onto a burning hot piece of coal ... we are the ones getting burned, not the person with whom we resent ...
So 'forgiveness' ... is absolutely necessary for us to gain the spiritual progress we seek ...
God Bless, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
The practice of deep and true forgiveness results in the vaporizing of the pain the memories used to bring--it is incredibly freeing. Being forgiven is equally restorative to the self and soul. A cliche, but true: forgiving does not mean forgetting and is not any kind of message that the elements requiring the forgiveness would be acceptable if repeated. It is a divesting of chains and shackles on ourselves and others, so we are free-and free others-to go forward unchained and unshackled...and in opposite directions without looking back, when necessary.
I had to force myself to say prayers for people I was angry with at first. Now it's not so hard, on both levels. When I began to pray, it was so foreign & strange, like writing a letter to Santa at 33 to bring a present to the kid who punched me in the nose on the playground.
Now I am willing to anything, no matter how ridiculous it feels to me, and I'm learning slowly that these things are what will save my life. If someone told me I had cancer and I had to take a radio-active pill to help me heal, I would find that really crazy too. I don't know how aspirin even works actually. But I take it because millions of people say it works for them. Why should it be any different in AA? I don't know, but for me it was, until I felt sick enough and would do anything.
Now I take my medicine: meetings, working with a sponsor, pray to a HP - with no questions asked.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
