| forgiveness is the road to freedom |

This past Thursday was a whole day of God speaking to me. Everything that He was putting his finger on was confirmed when Pastor Sam spoke about not being bound by bitterness, past hurts, and relationships yesterday during service. Thanks for the giant smack of confirmation God!

From the moment I woke up last Thursday and made my coffee I knew God was trying to speak something to me but His voice was silenced by an overwhelming sense of bitterness and hurt. I found myself getting angry a few times throughout the day. I also had selfish and revengeful thoughts flooding my mind. Throughout the day I was texting a few friends and shared with them how I was feeling. They were all familiar with my hurt and the reasons behind my feelings. The more I expressed the cloudiness in my mind with friends it became more and more clear to me that un-forgiveness and bitterness were showing their ugly face from a specific moment in my past. I guess I didn't fully uproot those areas and God was telling me to take care of them. By keeping those roots in my life I have been allowing easy access for Satan to sneak into my life and gain control.
My past is apart of me and I am constantly reminded of what God has done for me but also I can't allow the hurts and bitterness to keep me bound from the future that He has set before me. Those areas need to be attacked and uprooted. The hurt that I am feeling needs to be let go and forgiven. Forgiving is a process. For me there are stages of forgiveness. Expressing my hurt, getting angry about it and thinking about retaliation or revenge, letting it go, and fully forgiving the person or situation. I think right now I am in the 'letting it go' stage. I am inching closer and closer to full forgiveness but it's still processing. Once true forgiveness has taken place I am fully releasing the situation to God and moving on with my life.

Forgiveness is the road to freedom.