Fighting for Forgiveness

One of the most difficult things for me to do-and, I suspect, for a lot of other people, too-is to forgive myself. I simply don't feel worthy of forgiveness. Instead, I've found that it is much easier to wallow in self-inflicted guilt and, consequently, play the blame game. I say that because when I refuse to forgive myself and instead pile on immense globs of guilt, I still need to release it somehow. Noone, not even myself, can hang on to that much guilt. The thing it, the guilt has to go somewhere even if it refuses to be forgiven. So, I do the next best thing; sluff some of that guilt off onto someone else. The problem with this is, when I do that, I am no longer taking full responsibility for the things that I have done. Wouldn't it be much easier to confront the thing I have done, acknowledge the truth of my part in it, then choose to forgive myself. That way, I cannot give myself any excuses, or let someone else take the blame for something I alone have done.

But what if I do it again? And again? And again times ten? Well, it just so happens that our God is much better at forgiveness than we are. And He doesn't get tired. Forgiveness means you're not willing to give up even though you keep messing up. The thing is, we are always going to mess up. There is no getting around that. But truly forgiving ourselves and trying again is not something that comes naturally.

We have to fight for it.