Time for forgiveness

The season of advent feels a little remote for me this year. I'm aware around me that the season is celebrated in different ways. While Im use to be present in a place of non celebration, it is rather just the awareness of the liturgy matching the living. If this makes sense! Next week might feel a little more festive with a crib going to be made in the house, along with a Christmas tree and the build up on Christmas Eve mass, community celebration of the gift of Jesus.

I have been continuing to work through my reflection book, confronting forgiveness. A gift that is so rich, so deep and so hard to given and receive.

Forgiveness is a word that has so many different shapes, colours, forms and depth for every single person.

 For me personally the word comes with a longing of laying before the altar where I find living water to leave my heart or at times head's burden for the Lord to take. For him to breath life into them, in His time. 

While it is easy to write this, put these words to paint a picture, reality is that Im human and its hard! 

I'm not even going to dwell on the pain, suffering that cries out for forgiveness around the world. There is far too little words to explain the state of human relationships around the globe, especially with people in roles of caring for the others who for whatever reason self serve instead!! 

I can't help feel that forgiveness is like a gift. A gift we carry at times; we peek in with disappointment, while at other times we touch it, roll it around in our hands in wonder. We pass it on and receive it back, sometimes bravely lifting it up to the Lord and giving it away with a sense of joy, healing and love. 

This gift of forgiveness is just that, a gift.

Its a gift that is creative, it is so personal that each individual has a way for their heart to express their own forgiveness in different ways. Sometimes the chains seem heavy while at other times its those small daily frustrations that weave together to create a strand that is unable to be identify as easily or let go of. Forgiveness is just that, the act of unchaining ourselves from thoughts, feelings that bind us. It is a commitment to a process of growth and change. The first step is to recognise the value of the gift, the positive impact it can have on our inner selfs. 

Jesus told us to forgive not seven times yet seven times seventy, which illustrates the great power that lays behind forgiveness. Its hard work! When the gift is open we release the control and power of the offending person and stop playing the victim. We no longer define our lives by how we have been hurt, instead can define ourselves by how we have grown. 

This is the gift, one that requires help, assistance, prayer, coming before the altar and love. It requires tears, laughter, darkness for the coming of the light. A gift that is a process, one that is painful yet one that the soul must be guided through. 

The biggest forgiveness for myself is that of my parents, the forgiveness of rejection which is the hardest human emotion to confront. Its a chain that at times feels so heavy yet it is weaved through so much of my being that at times hits hard while other moments is a parcel just sitting calling for attention. Slowly Im working through this, slowly Im realising that compassion guides the heart to be able to wear thin the weave, to break the gift to reveal beauty of our Creator. Slowly, it is a process…. A journey…