Amnesty Day

In an effort to further delay my trip to the gym this morning, I was thumbing through one of my magazines and came across an article on forgiveness. It was kind of a hokey little article about women forgiving those who trespass against them- you know the whole “frenemy” thing.

I’ve never been great at forgiving or forgetting for that matter. Hello, my name is MAV and I am a total grudge holder. You hurt me, my family or someone I love and I’m pretty much done with you. I like to pretend it’s all about my deep loyalty, but in truth it is a horrible trait. Thankfully, with being a grown-up and all, I haven’t had as much opportunity to show off my awesome grudge-holding skills. We are blessed to have a slew of wonderful people in our lives. After our early twenties the drama seemed to dissipate more and more each year, but there was still some smattered here and there.

So, back to the article.

One thing about it really struck me-it was talking about how forgiveness is really more for yourself than for that other person. I immediately thought of something I heard the brilliant Dr. Joseph Lowry say when he spoke at my school about a million years ago- if you choose to hold a man in a ditch you’re just as tied to that ditch as he is.

Today I’m walking away from the ditch. So those who have wronged me, my family or my friends, those of you who begrudged us our happiness and lashed out in petty jealousy, those who let us down over and over and over, those who didn’t care about my feelings as much as I did yours- I’m no longer on patrol. You’re now free and clear from my grudges.

And so am I.