Forgiveness

  -Yesterday afternoon, when I was resting in bed, the Holy Spirit reminded me of an incident. It wasn't too long after I started coming to this church so it was years ago. The Holy Spirit impressed on me that I needed to forgive my parents. I thought that was kind of weird as they both were deceased by that time. This is the situation that I needed to forgive. I had an older brother, the oldest of my siblings, but he passed away before I was born. After three girls, when I was born, they really, really wanted a boy, In fact, I still remember my mother saying that she wasn't excited about me being born as she knew that I would be another stinking girl. The fact that I remembered it after so many years shows how badly I must have felt hurt and rejection. But, as I was  thinking about this yesterday, it dawned on me that the comment was probably meant as a joke but, because I was a child, I took it literally and carried the hurt all these years.

As I was thinking about it all, I realized that writing this down might help me to release forgiveness to my parents for making me feel like I was less welcome for being a girl. I had good, loving parents who would never have knowingly said anything to hurt me but, just like all us humans, they sometimes said things that they shouldn't have. I am not entirely sure why God wanted me to share this but the Bible does have a lot to say our words and this is a prime example of how careless words can hurt badly for a long time.