Forgiveness

I believe in priorities.  I think if you set them straight and enforce them it can change your life for the better.  I've written about this before and I want to write a whole book on it. God tells us what the greatest commandment is: to love Him with everything we have.  If we accomplish that,  we should have no problem prioritizing everything else according to His word.

I have done well with this. When I married Harrison I made sure that that God came first, he came second and I was to do everything I could to make sure nothing interfered with that.  I have put myself in uncomfortable situations where I've hurt people because I refused to let them into certain areas ofmy life. Areas  that I thought, if I let anyone in,  it would cause friction between my relationship with God or my husband.

I was successful in doing this. I love the Lord my God and I trust Him with my life.  Harrison lights up my whole world and the love I have for him is indescribable.

I left out an important part when I got these priorities straight. I didn't forgive these people for interfering. This has lead to a massive build up of anger. Yes,  I've recently talked about my medical problems that cause irritability but I don't think it's just that.

We had such an interesting sermon this morning. Our pastor used the cruise ship that crashed near Italy as an example of forgiveness. I didn't know that they recently turned the ship right side up to get it out of there. But there were a lot of things that came into play in order to do this. Just like there are a lot of things we need to do in order to get become "upright " in our own lives.

One of the many things they did was defule the ship to get rid of its excess weight, making it easier to get to the upright position. I have so much defuling I need to do.  I'm holding onto so much anger and it doesn't feel good.  The only way to get rid of this junk or this "fuel" is through forgiveness. I failed at this step.

Another thing our pastor pointed out was the way the ship looked when they finally got it up. Beautiful on one side but worn on the other. People can look like this too. Beautiful on the outside but messed up on the inside. There are a lot of people who look at me and see the girl who survived cancer with an unwavering faith. But just like everyone else, there are parts of me that are damaged too.

I loved how this morning he mentioned the cost that had to go into getting that ship upright. Millions of dollars in fees and such. Jesus already paid our debt though. We can seek His forgiveness and receive it free of charge,  no "works" required because of what He did for us on the cross.

My favorite part of the day was tonight's sermon and the verse that was mentioned: "seek and you will find." I'm seeking forgiveness and the beautiful thing about it is that I'm going to find. God said so!