It’s Too Late to Apologize

Well, as I’m thinking about writing this post I’m almost sure a ton of emotions will instantly flood my mind and body. Even though I’m afraid of revisiting those times and emotions, I think it’s good to release some of those feelings and figure out ways to gain control of them, and better yet, to fix the problem.

So what sparked this blog post was something I read the other night:

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” And that passage lead me to read this:

“Healing includes the healing of relationships , which is why we are exhorted: ‘confess your sins to one another,’ meaning those we have wronged. That is, if you have wronged or offended others, confess to them.”

Hmmm…the healing of relationships…

Hmmm…confess your sins to one another…

After reading that, I naturally thought and asked the question to my husband, “ Is there anyone you have wronged?”

While he thought about it, I thought about the people I have wronged and the relationships I hurt. I hurt them so much, that I begged and begged for their forgiveness, and even after they forgave me, it took me years to forgive myself.

It’s not a pleasant feeling, thinking about the pain I caused. The heart-wrenching betrayal and hurt I caused by selfish decisions I  made. I’d like to blame it entirely on maturity, but I think my actions in the past resulted in the absence of God.

There is a parable in the Bible where Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother who had sinned against him, and Jesus responds with what basically means, there is no set amount of times, you keep forgiving.

Whaaattt?? You’re saying I have to KEEP FORGIVING?? UGHHHH.

What gets me the most about this parable is that we must forgive a person who has wronged us in order to be truly changed at heart: it is commanded.

Love one another.

A few months ago, I think I was reading the same passage about forgiveness (James 5) and I instantly thought about a person I never, ever thought I could forgive. And even though years had passed since the wrong-doing (yes, I wronged her, too), I would continue to say such vile things about this person.

And then I thought, hmm, should I really go and find this person and make things right? I had already tried it once before, and the relationship ended up turning sour again, but is that enough reason not to try again, this time more sincere?

And THEN, a good friend whom I would always talk trash to about this girl said she had been seeing the girl around town a lot lately.

Coincidence?? I think not…

And THEN my husband saw her at a local grocery store within the same week my friend saw her…

Coincidence?? I think not…

So I asked my bff, hey, should we like, make things straight with this girl?

And to my surprise, she actually considered it, too.

But then I forgot about it, and forgot about fixing things with the girl.

Until now.

Can I forgive her? Should I forgive her? Should I ask her to forgive me? The answers to those questions should be a resounding ‘yes,’ but holy guacamole, how do I even BEGIN to do that, especially since I don’t trust her anymore?

“Fervent prayer avails much…”

So pray I shall.

And if you’re reading this right now, can you think of someone you have wronged?

Be honest, of course you can 😉

So why not think about mending bridges, or at least saying your sorry? It doesn’t mean you have to rebuild that relationship, but at least you know you made your peace.

Until next time,

Em

p.s ( can you even p.s. yourself? and in a blog post to boot? lol)

In previous blogs I managed to be a little ambiguous about the mentioning of God, purely because I only have a few blogs up and I didn’t want readers to instantly turn their eyes away  at the mere mentioning of a deity.

But, it is what it is, and I’ll gladly go with it.

And, dear reader, I hope that you keep reading. Atheist, agnostic, or whatever you may be, I think we can all learn from each other.