A young woman living in New York City was planning to go home for a Christmas
visit. She hated to go because she and her father did not get along well. What
she did not realize was that she was fighting a war that was over long ago. Her
father had mellowed, and welcomed his daughter back again. I know. I was that
father.
I learned to forgive by using my journal to confess the hardness in my heart and ask God for a change. Often we swallow not only our words, but the feelings and ideas, which have given rise to them, so much so that they do not remain accessible even to ourselves. We need the space and quiet of our journal to let them surface again.
Write a letter to a loved one, call it 'what I never told you.' The private letter written in your journaling becomes a way of exploring for yourself the unsaid words of appreciation, fear, anger, disappointment, etc.
An incomplete relationship lingers in the memory when we consistently fail to say what we feel or mean what we say. When we become conscious of them anew, we are able to do something about them. To ask forgiveness can bring healing. If the feelings are bitter, we may need to call upon God, to give us the grace to be willing to forgive.
Forgiveness can bring healing of the memories!
Nandor Kiss of Green Valley AZ began his association with Faith At Work when Sam Shoemaker had a group meeting at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City. A long-time supporter of the ministry, he participated in the Santa Barbara FAW event last summer.
Another article by Nandor Kiss is: God Has Something for Me to Do Wherever I Am