Tak… Tak...Tak…
The sound of raindrops hitting on the house roof. I walked towards the windows to double confirmed what I have heard. “Ah! It’s raining again”, it has been raining every evening for the past two weeks.
It is 5 pm, I noticed the outside temperature dropped and turned to a cooler and refreshing environment. Resting lazily on the sofa, I recalled back to an incident that happens sometimes recently. A heated argument caused by an officer from another section created a stir in the office. It is all about an officer, who has been acting rude and unprofessional in handling an inter-departmental issue. Words uttered out from his mouth are like a double edged-sword that pierced deep into one’s heart. It is an embarrassing moment for our colleague to be caught in such a situation especially when it occurs in front of her colleagues and friends. Thanked God that the incident did not end up in a serious argument as he just walked away from the scene without a word of sorry. Honestly, as a close friend, I was annoyed to witness that unexpected event and I felt sorry for my friend because a gentle and humble person like her does not deserve to be treated that way.
Picking up my cup of hot brewed coffee for another sip, the delicious taste from the hot coffee keeps my mind working, thinking about that incident despite the cool temperature from the evening's heavy downpour. After dealing with the issue and thinking about how it’s happened, and obviously, it must not be an easy situation for my friend after that incident, I guessed she must be feeling angry and emotionally hurts at the same time.
Hurts can be defined as emotional stress or pain according to the Cambridge dictionary. It is an unpleasant feeling, caused by harsh words, damaging critics, and past bad memories. It can be associated with anger when hurts are not being handled and deal with properly. American Psychological Association claimed that Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Anger can be triggered when one experienced an act of injustice, unfairness, humiliation, not being appreciated, or being treated beyond one patience. Other contributing factors can be due to past traumatic memories or an unforgiveness of personal encounters. They also reported that the long-term effects of anger are associated with many serious health problems, to mention a few: increase blood pressure, anxieties, chronic headaches, musculoskeletal issues, and other unwanted health issues.
As a grown-up and after going through many phases of life journeys. Feeling hurts and anger are parts of life training experiences. Often they have educated me to be a “stronger” person when facing many life unexpected challenges. It’s also taught me about the need for constant self-reflection and self-improvement. I thanked God for those encounters that have helped me to grow to know Him more.
I admit it is not an easy moment whenever it comes to the situation of being emotional hurts and being angry. I do have multiple encounters to deal with my mind on how to get rid of those negative feelings, to learn to forgive and forget of what had happened and to reflect and do a self-correction towards a better person. As a human, it is always an impossible mission to learn to forgive and to forget.
After much thinking, suddenly God’s word came to my mind: Mathew 6:12 New Living Translation says “and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us”. Some might ask, how do one sin against God? The bible says, one sinned against God when one has done things that are wrong to God and others in the sight of God through thoughts, words, and deeds, through negligence, weakness, or through one own deliberate fault.
It reminds me again, my daily confession to God when I asked for forgiveness for the sins that I have done against God. God's gentle reminder has awakened me to constantly cleared my unhealthy “baggage” that can jeopardize my relationship with Him. Every day, I have to search my heart to make sure that there is no space to store and to hid my hurts, anger, and unforgiveness. I need to choose to forgive first those who have sinned and done wrong to me before I said the Lord’s Prayer.
In conclusion, to forgive and to forget. It is easily said than done, often it’s required guts, determination and the willingness to let go of those negative feelings that have haunted one's minds, to trust that His grace is always sufficient, and to accept that God will restore the broken-hearted and heal their wound.
Thank you for your time to drop by at this article, to forgive and forget, it’s one's choice to make. Are you convinced?
The lead image is taken from Unsplash.
