Today, I am so grateful my life.
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I started getting ready for bed last night, but instead, feeling a bit uneasy, I just turned off all the lights and sat in my recliner and thought.
Sometime in the next two hours it occurred to me that I needed to forgive my cousin.
I know how this works. I forgave my Daddy, and know I only remember my childhood as a good one.
I forgave my step-mother, which I thought would be the hardest thing in the world to do, but I did and rarely think of her abuse.
I even have forgiven my second ex, who abused me physically and emotionally every week and even tried to kill me twice in the three years I was with him. I rarely ever think about him and it's like those three years didn't even exist in my life.
They say that holding a grudge against someone doesn't hurt them, it only keeps poisoning you. I have found that to be true.
So today, I drove up to church for my Daddy's cousins funeral and when I saw my other cousin walk in--the one I have been avoiding for the last two years, I walked up to her with a smile on my face, gave her a big hug and asked if I could sit with her during the funeral.
We had a wonderful catch-up chat before and after the funeral and held hands through part of the funeral.
The funeral was lovely, by the way. Our minister knew the cousin very well and told delightful stories about him. At the end, there was a small military service. It was very touching and when they played taps, I got a few tears. This woman who never cries--especially not at funerals.
I think my woman cousin may have had an inkling about things that have happened as, she asked me about Mark and Pam and Karen and all Karen's kids, but oddly, she never mentioned Jennifer or Jennifer's children. Oddly I say because her girls and Jennifer are the same age and used to play together all the time and my cousin "usually" asks about Jen first.
We parted with hugs, not knowing if we will ever see each other again, and I wished her a Happy Birthday. Her Birthday is March 18th. I did not send her a birthday or Christmas card last year.
You know, it is really dumb of me. I can't tell you how many people I have counseled on forgiveness. My all time favorite example is the part of the Lord's Prayer, where it says, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive our trespassers." To me the "as we" means, in like manner.
God will forgive us the same way we forgive others. God will judge us in the same way we judge others.
Heavy stuff. God doesn't hold a grudge and it is not right for me to either.
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In the course of the last three years, quite a few friends have asked me why I always seem so happy. Well--I don't know...I just am. I am truly happy with life. Content, peaceful and just happy. I smile all the time, even when I am in the house all alone. I get the biggest joys out of some of the simplest things.
Being born into a Christian home isn't always easy. You hear of people having conversions--massive emotional events that change their whole lives. The Born Again thing. I never had that. God and Jesus were a daily part of my life.
When I was small, I thought they were relatives of ours!! When I was about three, we had a family reunion. Mother told me that my grandparents, aunts and uncles and all my cousins were coming and we were going to have a big table with food outside, under the big maple tree.
When everyone had arrived and we were ready to sit down to eat, my grandfather said a prayer. I kept looking around and finally I leaned over and asked my Mother, "Where is Jesus. We should wait until Jesus gets here to say the prayer." I think she thought I was not making much sense, small person that I was.
God and Jesus have always been in my life and it was no big deal. I talked to them while I was playing or, riding my bike on a nice day, I'd say, "Thank you Jesus for the sunshine." No, I couldn't see them, but I knew they could hear me.
I have never in my entire life blamed God for anything bad that has happened, but I always thank Him for good stuff. Even when my Mother died so young, I never thought that God had taken her.
When Fred died, friends and neighbor's could not understand why I was so "happy". I just felt so grateful to God for bringing Fred and I together, that there never was a thought that God had taken him away from me.
You just can't blame God when someone dies in an accident, or is taken for some unknown reason. Fred brought on his own ill health by drinking a lot when he was younger and smoking for well over 50 years. I don't know why my mother died from some unknown cause, there must have been a reason. When one of my best friends was killed in a car accident, it wasn't God's fault. My friend was being reckless and went through a stop sign. I believed all this, all my life.
I also don't believe that EVERYTHING is in God's plan. I just can't believe that whole pre-determination thingie. God has a good plan for us, BUT so much of the route we take in life is by our own choices and free will. By our own decisions and choices, we can mess His plan up, big time!
He gave us that free will. If tomorrow, I drive out of here and don't stop and look before I go out onto the busy road that runs in front of this park and get myself killed--that was my free will, not God's. I suppose He could stop the accident from killing me, but sometimes...God just let's free will prevail.
Anyway--I didn't really have my "come to Jesus" moment until about seven years ago. It wasn't a big event. No one was jumping up, raising their hands in the air and yelling, "Thank you, Jesus!", as I crawled and wept rolling down the aisle.
I was sitting outside, on the front porch, in the dark on a warm summer night, thinking about my Daddy who had died two weeks earlier. I was crying because he had never said he loved me. Never really acted like it. Then a thought came into my mind. I realized, my Daddy was probably severely strict because he thought it was the right way to raise a daughter. A "good girl."
He had no siblings. He had no knowledge of how his mother would have raised brothers or sisters. I was not born with a "How To" manual.
I just said, "God, please forgive my Daddy and clear my heart and mind of any bad thoughts I have of him."
I woke up the next morning feeling happy and "lighter" than I had in decades. Since then, I have forgiven every person I thought had wronged me in any way.
I actually "get it" now and it HAS made my life so much better and my emotional state so much more peaceful. It's quite amazing, actually.
You don't even have to tell the other person that you forgive them--they probably wouldn't know what you were talking about. They wouldn't remember or may not even know that you felt they had wronged you.
You just forgive them in your own mind.
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Sorry for the sermon. I certainly am not telling you how to live your life. I've heard a lot of people say, "Well I can forgive, but I will never forget." Well--no--that isn't how it works. I have found, at least for me, if I truly forgive them, I do forget. :-)
What in this world are you ever going to benefit if you hold onto grudges? When you die, if you believe you will go to Heaven and be judged, God isn't going to ask you to testify to how your neighbor, or husband, or cousin lived their life. He is only going to ask you how you lived yours.
If He looks at the chapter in His book entitled, "Judith" and He sees in there, "On April 12, 2013, Judith got angry at her cousin and still hasn't forgiven her," He is going to bring that whole thing up and say to me, "Well, I got upset with you on the sin you committed on April 17, 1957 and, although you've asked forgiveness, you hold grudges and I am going to judge you in the same way. I can't forgive you for that. So...I guess you can't come in."
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I had a really good day today and I'll just bet I sleep a whole lot better tonight. Eh?
