Love Must Forgive

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Colossians 3:13

"There are some things I just can't forgive," I can hear some say. I get that. I held on to anger for a decade, knowing I needed to forgive, but the hurt went so deep, on my own power I could not; mostly, because I did not want to forgive. After all, the anger was justified.

Maybe so, but the anger did not take away the injustice; the anger did not make me a noble person. What the anger did do was put a barrier between me and everyone else in my life, including God. When anger rules the heart, love withers.

What did I do? What could I do? I finally asked God to take away my anger, confessing that my anger was a sin greater than any done to me and the others involved. That act of obedience was difficult, but God heard it. The next morning, not a week later, not a year later, but the very next morning, the anger was gone. I did not do it; God did.

Now I found I still had to build a wall against the anger returning. I knew I was vulnerable, so I took myself away from people and places which fueled that anger, while also taking steps to mend broken relationships where possible. I prayed for the power to keep that anger out of my heart, dealing with it immediately.

God will restore peace to a troubled heart when we trust him enough to obey his command to "love one another" and "to forgive one another."