Letting it Go

We've all got our sad stories, right? Hell, I've got about a dozen or so myself. Usually, my sad story will revolve around someone who has done something to me. Or someone that I perceive has done something to me. No secret there. Our ability to overcome these transgressions, real or perceived, are the true measure of who we are as people. We will never avoid being hurt so wouldn't our time be better spent getting through the hard time instead of trying to avoid it? For the longest time I had no idea how to deal with the hurt ... so I didn't. I was hurt a very long time ago by someone that I loved. I ignored that hurt for years. I carried around the hurt, I carried around the unforgiveness, I carried around the resentment for years. Talk about baggage. Once I realized how ridiculous that was I made an attempt to let it go. I proclaimed that I had learned how to forgive and I was moving on. I thought this was a great first step. I prayed to God that he would remove the pain and teach me how to forgive. And He did. I was free! I was finally free. But there was still another step that I still had to take which I only just recently discovered. I had to stop using that past pain as an excuse to treat people like crap. I was delivered from the past now it was time for me to completely move out of the past. It is so wrong to make the people in your present pay for the sins of the people from the past. I couldn't acknowledge that I was doing that until I saw someone else doing it. It's terrible. I don't want to be like that. It's like being broke all your life and living in a bad neighborhood, then coming into a significant amount of money and not moving out of that neighborhood. We need to move out of that neighborhood. It doesn't fit anymore. Life is different. Life is better. Shed the past. Embrace the present and look forward to the future.


Book update: 174 pages/34,656 words