A dog, coffee and forgiveness

It seems that I am to learn a powerful lesson in forgiveness this morning.  Every morning I sit (this morning outside) enjoying my quiet time with God.  Our one golden retriever, Buttercup, sees any opportunity of someone sitting as her invitation to play ball with her.  She gently places the ball back by your left hip and runs out into the yard to “hide” and wait for you to throw it back to her, she then runs it back up to you and comes the stealth route, I guess so you are “surprised” to find the ball back by your hip.  The stealth route is coming between the table and chairs which are inches away from the house.  Normally she is able to do this without incident, this morning her tail feathers must have gotten caught in the chair hinges and she yanked herself free causing the table, the chair, the lanterns, my books and my hot coffee to go flying and subsequently crashing to the ground.

 

I was clearly annoyed and wet.  She had “shattered” my peaceful moments.  I am just now finished cleaning up the mess (there was minimal scolding because I didn’t want to wake the neighbors!) and I reached down to her to tell her I still love her even when she drenches me with hot coffee.  Her liquid brown eyes looked up at me and I melted, as if I was the one who caused all this mess – and then it hits me – in God’s eyes, I am the one and He reaches down to me to tell me that despite my DAILY screw-ups, He still loves me!

I know people who seem to be so fearful of screwing up that they remain distant to the people around them, seeking the safety of relationships they can only live vicariously through.  There won’t ever be any real interactions, good or bad, because there isn’t any real connection!  This is a source of intrigue for me, I will admit!  I feel relationships are powerful and I believe God wants us to live in community, so it is His desire for us to intermingle.  Cooperation plays a big part!

Yes, I was more than a bit annoyed with Buttercup, but it was momentary.  Besides that, she’s a dog!  With people our emotions can run the gamut from annoyance, through anger, through trepidation but tucked down deeper are our own fears of our own ineptitudes.  We don’t want others to see our weaknesses, so we hide them by not getting involved in real relationships that might cause us to actually have to deal with things.  We might say we don’t need the stresses of what relationships might bring to us, but I wonder how much of it is that we don’t want anyone to see our limitations and fear their shining a light on our dark places.  Think what you want now, hide as you will, but the day is coming when our shame will be evident to all, mine included.  When the Lord comes and His light shines, our darkness’s will be revealed for all to see!

We have only developed half-way in my opinion.  We can forgive, and that is monumental, but we have more difficulty forgetting either because we can’t or we won’t and I believe this is tied into how much we are hurt by whatever the infraction was.  This inability to forget, changes the relationship because it makes at least one of those involved, self-conscious.  The other party may or may not even be aware.  We assign significance to our relationships and when that importance is betrayed it is harder to have the trust that is so important in them.  Here’s the thing, again in my opinion, people, me included, want to do what is right, but in our selfishness we look to doing it according to our own standards.  I am again learning that people can be careless of your feelings at times but it is usually not because they are intentional about it, they have just been pre-occupied with other issues. 

If I am able to move past by both forgiving and forgetting the occurrence with Buttercup this morning, what does it say about me, if I expect a certain behavior from a person who doesn’t produce said behavior and I neither forgive them or forget about it? I believe it is called a grudge!  That said, sometimes certain relationships are just toxic and not supposed to work out.  You can still forgive them and forget about whatever the injustice was, it doesn’t mean you have to stay in that relationship though.  The key in determining whether or not to stay is whether or not you are holding a grudge – hoping / thinking the person will change if you pout enough.  If that is the case, I will be as direct as I possibly can, unless the person wishes to change on their own, the change, IF it were to happen, would only be temporary.  If they are wanting the change and are willing to work on it, then it will happen, but they have to be the force behind the desire!

God said to forgive, because we have been forgiven; I don’t recall anywhere in the Bible where it said, forgive and keep taking the same beating time and time again!  Let Him be the judge, it has been my experience that when I turn my relationships over to Him, He weeds out those that are the toxic ones for me and usually, those are the ones over time where I can look back and see that even though I may have sought the relationship, I was the only one actually involved in them!  In those cases, I can forgive – myself as well as them, and then move on and slowly forget. 

Final thought, people will always let you down – we can’t help it!  But God, will never let you down – you may not always like the way things go, but God can work it all to the good!  As our minister says, the most common word used when we finally reach heaven’s gate ……..Ohhhhhhhh!

Looking up! ~ Barb – not quite so Malibu this morning!