This week we've talked
about how we put ourselves in the Good Guy Chair and people who have
wronged us in the Bad Guy Chair, and how judging steals our identity.
So here's how to get out of the Good Guy Chair; aka, the
Victim Chair.
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not
pretending nothing happened. We can admit they sinned against us and
did an evil, ugly thing to us. Forgiveness is declaring they are not
the evil, ugly thing – their action was. We forgive by
understanding we as human beings are not what we do. And the other
person is not what they do. They are not the evil they did to us.
Forgiveness is an act of
the will. You can be angry about what was done to you and still
choose to forgive. You can still set boundaries so you're not hurt
again while still choosing to forgive. That is, provided our anger
and our boundaries are set against the person's actions – not
against the person themselves.
They are not what they
did to us. That realization, which can only hit home in our hearts by
the power of the Holy Spirit, allows us to still grieve what they did
to us and hence go through the process of healing the wound, while
simultaneously releasing them from owing us anything for it. That's
forgiveness.
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