The Hoods-Motherhood, Womanhood and Parenthood
Forgiveness
As I reflect on the past years, forgiveness has impacted my walk in womanhood, marriage, relationships with other women, and parenting and motherhood. Today, I can say that I am thankful that God was able to touch my heart to start my release process. Women are wired uniquely; some are naturally nurturers, soft, caring, and givers. Throughout life, hardships and offenses leave us broken, holding too much we need to carry. In an imperfect world, all of us have experienced profound hurt. Hurtful events, whether abuse, neglect, abandonment, betrayal, or broken relationships, may have occurred in childhood or adulthood.
In all relationships, whether friendships, family, children, or loved ones, just in being “human.” Being human, we all have a fault and weak areas to develop. Socially, we all have different communication styles, parental upbringing, cultural backgrounds, maturity levels, value systems, life experiences, and past trauma causes us all to perceive things differently and influence how we interact with each other, which may contribute to conflict, offense, or just plan mistreatment.
In conflict, emotions arise; we all have emotions, and different people handle emotions differently, some healthy and some unhealthy ways. Everyone comes into a situation with personality, temperament, self-control, and the defense mechanisms we put into place to protect ourselves play a role in handling conflict.
Forgiveness allows us to let go of conflict, move on, and not stay stuck in the same places mentally, spiritually, and even physically. I have personally experienced living in unforgiveness versus forgiveness, and it is in my heart to share the peace and growth that manifest in your life once you decide to forgive. Forgiveness is a process that starts
in your mind; it is a decision; forgiveness begins with our mouth and simply saying, “I forgive you.” Forgiveness occurs in our hearts and manifests in our actions and attitudes.
1. The Path of Forgiveness Leads to Peace, Growth, Confidence, Healing, Joy. The path of unforgiveness leads to discord, stagnancy, insecurity, and a heart closed off to receiving and giving our hearts. As a result of hurt, anger cannot be released and shows up in your life, interrupting your peace. So, when we say, “ I forgive you,” What do we do? We release the other person, and we also release ourselves.
2. Forgiveness sends us on a healing path to examine our hearts. When we are looking at ourselves, we are less likely to focus on others and time to nurture ourselves and allow God to work in our hearts. When we focus on our hearts, we can find that we have also hurt or offended someone. This realization leads to compassion for others.
3. Forgiveness brings forth wisdom and understanding; with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can identify the roots of our hurt, identify our triggers, nurture ourselves and strengthen our “soft” spots so that we are not easily offended and walk around with a problem with everything and everyone.
These soft spots could be in our expectations for others; when parents, children, or loved ones fall short of our expectations, we feel disappointments, hurt, and sometimes other intense emotions. Are our soft spots being overlooked, left out, or deceived? How do we react? Are we forgiving? Do we show compassion and give others grace?
4. We can cultivate happiness from within and experience the fruit of joy despite our circumstances. We are also able to help uplift others who have had similar experiences.
What Forgiveness is Not:
● Forgiveness does not always lead to restored relationships; however, you will release emotional weight and sometimes physical weight as well.
● Forgiveness does not mean that you are weak; forgiveness takes strength.
● Forgiveness also allows you to reconcile some relationships and establish boundaries.
● Most of All, Forgiveness is Christ-Like
