Walking Through Forgiveness
I apply the last bit of mascara and blink. There. Perfect. Only wearing mascara today because, with blonde lashes, I look bald without it. My husband prefers no makeup on me, because he says I'm beautiful with and without, so I'm trying to accept myself without, spots and blotchy skin and all.
I'm about to leave the house in half an hour to go and meet him after work. He finishes at 4, and then I'm going to talk him into an evening walk in the park with me before we go home.
Ever the romantic!
Plus, it's healthy, and it's Autumn. Haha! One of my favourite months.
I did something today.
I've been changing a lot recently. Marriage is a great changer of people. Especially when compared often with the relationship of Christ and His church.
Today, I made a plan and ditched it. Ever since my life messed up five, almost six years ago, I've had a passionate fondness of plans. Order. KNOWING what is going to happen. Living in a situation where you don't know what's going to blow up around you next for a long time makes you like that. 🙂 So making a plan and then it going to ruin - that's hard for me to accept. True, I forgave myself for messing my plan and order of the day up, which is probably a LOT easier now than it will be when I have kids and am homeschooling and have to do that one far more frequent occasions, but it's a start. I've learned to accept baby steps and cheer them as victories. If you belittle baby steps, it's far harder to recognise or take another.
One of a woman's - especially a wife or mother's - greatest skills is to make a plan and then ditch it at a moment's notice - with a smile on her face. I don't know how I'm going to do that one, but I'll pray and try!
So instead of getting up, eating breakfast, washing my hair, tidying our room, making FIMO characters, watching my TV shows, chatting some friends and then going to meet him after work, I've got up, watched a wedding video, written an email, sat and chatted to my stepdad while eating lemon tart, had a shower, washed my hair and am tidying my room. Not much of a plan change, but still, annoying. I have my mother's bad habit of getting angry with myself if I feel like I'm underachieving, or not living to equal her busy schedule. 😝
The email I wrote was to long-ago friends who, coming three years ago in Feb/March, hurt me badly. Three months after my heart had been ripped open by the guy I loved finally giving a closure to us. Bad timing. It didn't hurt so bad at first, until they completely kicked me away. Then it grew into hatred. I knew I shouldn't hate, so I bottled it down with a couple of other things and pretended it didn't exist. But I knew it did. The flashbacks and the hatred kept happening, especially when some news reached me that made a heck of a lot of sense of things. So bad I knew that if revenge was in my power, I would. Which scared me so I bottled down harder. Earlier this year, God started dealing with that.
If there's one thing I've learned over this many-times-painful six year so far growth into maturity, it's that you cannot rush healing - and you cannot rush forgiveness. Both need to be lived through, worked through and battled through. But they - like your Christian life - cannot stay bottled up or stagnant, or they will ruin something. Usually you.
I wrote to them to tell them I had forgiven them for what they did, and asked their forgiveness for my hatred. I don't care if they never respond. I hope they don't. The friendship can never come back. But I needed to, because I can no longer take the Lord's Supper or worship with His people, knowing this blackness in my heart for those He loves too.
It doesn't mean that a magic wand has been waved and I'm full of love. Nope, forgiveness has many battles on its way to victory. But I've physically started - it's all well and good saying 'Oh yeah, I've forgiven them' and possibly even fooling myself, but a physical action of gruelling humbling means that I have to mentally acknowledge without lying to myself.
So here goes.
I said to Atul recently that I'm changing. Growing. I'm ready for stuff now I wasn't even ready for a year ago when we first started talking about marriage - a house, kids, a life. You're never actually 'ready' for stuff until it hits you, but I'm mentally ready now.
So hi.
I'm Siân Kumar. I'm 24 years old; I have a past, which I like to be brutally honest about. I'm married; not the most idyllic marriage, what with our culture, nationality, faith and language being different, but to the best man for me, whom I firmly believe God brought into my life at a time I needed him most.
I've been through a lot; people tell me God has great plans for my life, though living in one bedroom, working a lot to make ends meet and barely talking to any of my friends (my fault, so tired all the time!) doesn't seem like a great plan. I'm not changing the world, I just live and talk about it.
So if you like that kind of thing, stick around. 🙂 God's not done with us yet.
In Jesus' mighty Name and His love and peace,
Siân
I'm about to leave the house in half an hour to go and meet him after work. He finishes at 4, and then I'm going to talk him into an evening walk in the park with me before we go home.
Ever the romantic!
Plus, it's healthy, and it's Autumn. Haha! One of my favourite months.
I did something today.
I've been changing a lot recently. Marriage is a great changer of people. Especially when compared often with the relationship of Christ and His church.
Today, I made a plan and ditched it. Ever since my life messed up five, almost six years ago, I've had a passionate fondness of plans. Order. KNOWING what is going to happen. Living in a situation where you don't know what's going to blow up around you next for a long time makes you like that. 🙂 So making a plan and then it going to ruin - that's hard for me to accept. True, I forgave myself for messing my plan and order of the day up, which is probably a LOT easier now than it will be when I have kids and am homeschooling and have to do that one far more frequent occasions, but it's a start. I've learned to accept baby steps and cheer them as victories. If you belittle baby steps, it's far harder to recognise or take another.
One of a woman's - especially a wife or mother's - greatest skills is to make a plan and then ditch it at a moment's notice - with a smile on her face. I don't know how I'm going to do that one, but I'll pray and try!
So instead of getting up, eating breakfast, washing my hair, tidying our room, making FIMO characters, watching my TV shows, chatting some friends and then going to meet him after work, I've got up, watched a wedding video, written an email, sat and chatted to my stepdad while eating lemon tart, had a shower, washed my hair and am tidying my room. Not much of a plan change, but still, annoying. I have my mother's bad habit of getting angry with myself if I feel like I'm underachieving, or not living to equal her busy schedule. 😝
The email I wrote was to long-ago friends who, coming three years ago in Feb/March, hurt me badly. Three months after my heart had been ripped open by the guy I loved finally giving a closure to us. Bad timing. It didn't hurt so bad at first, until they completely kicked me away. Then it grew into hatred. I knew I shouldn't hate, so I bottled it down with a couple of other things and pretended it didn't exist. But I knew it did. The flashbacks and the hatred kept happening, especially when some news reached me that made a heck of a lot of sense of things. So bad I knew that if revenge was in my power, I would. Which scared me so I bottled down harder. Earlier this year, God started dealing with that.
If there's one thing I've learned over this many-times-painful six year so far growth into maturity, it's that you cannot rush healing - and you cannot rush forgiveness. Both need to be lived through, worked through and battled through. But they - like your Christian life - cannot stay bottled up or stagnant, or they will ruin something. Usually you.
I wrote to them to tell them I had forgiven them for what they did, and asked their forgiveness for my hatred. I don't care if they never respond. I hope they don't. The friendship can never come back. But I needed to, because I can no longer take the Lord's Supper or worship with His people, knowing this blackness in my heart for those He loves too.
It doesn't mean that a magic wand has been waved and I'm full of love. Nope, forgiveness has many battles on its way to victory. But I've physically started - it's all well and good saying 'Oh yeah, I've forgiven them' and possibly even fooling myself, but a physical action of gruelling humbling means that I have to mentally acknowledge without lying to myself.
So here goes.
I said to Atul recently that I'm changing. Growing. I'm ready for stuff now I wasn't even ready for a year ago when we first started talking about marriage - a house, kids, a life. You're never actually 'ready' for stuff until it hits you, but I'm mentally ready now.
So hi.
I'm Siân Kumar. I'm 24 years old; I have a past, which I like to be brutally honest about. I'm married; not the most idyllic marriage, what with our culture, nationality, faith and language being different, but to the best man for me, whom I firmly believe God brought into my life at a time I needed him most.
I've been through a lot; people tell me God has great plans for my life, though living in one bedroom, working a lot to make ends meet and barely talking to any of my friends (my fault, so tired all the time!) doesn't seem like a great plan. I'm not changing the world, I just live and talk about it.
So if you like that kind of thing, stick around. 🙂 God's not done with us yet.
In Jesus' mighty Name and His love and peace,
Siân
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)