Forgiveness of Self

Luke 10:27  The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”


I look in the mirror and think the worst things. Things I would not say to anyone, not even my worst enemy. I sit on my bed, tired and worn out and totally battered and bruised from words said to me and things I perceive and I berate myself. I drag myself over the coals for things I said or did. I pull myself down. I cover myself in mud and filth as I feel I deserve because I try and justify and work out things. I build my own Babylon. I try and build a tower with my own hands. I build it so high and so 'beautiful' that no one may penetrate it and hurt me again. That maybe next time I see someone I will not say or do something that I will regret.
It is all my fault I say. If only I hadn't said that. If only I wasn't such a loser. If only I had it all together like so and so over there. She never says anything wrong. Lord I don't think you can use me. I am just too messed up.
These are my thoughts sometimes and I am sure you can all relate to a few of theses things. We try and be perfect and not offend anyone and we do things on our own in our own strength. We try our utmost best to be someone. Do the right thing and not disappoint. We build and we build and we build but what we build is ugly. They are lies. We do not build the truth. We do not build things that God has told us to build. We waste all our energy on covering up. Just as make up will cover up our blemishes temporarily but it won't take them away.

What happens when we talk to ourselves like this is we end up calling God a liar. We don't believe the promises He has given us. The words He has spoken over us to build us up become this thing we despise. Be it an attack of the enemy or not it isn't right. When we don't love ourselves how can we love others well? How is it we treat others so much better than ourselves? Why are we so hard on ourselves?

When we pull ourselves down and we don't deal with issues and just patch them over it will affect our relationship with those around us. Not only that but we cannot fully love our enemies and we cannot live our lives loving as Christ does. We can become judgmental, critical and un-lovely.

When we love others we accept them. When we have problems in our relationships we try and mend them and forgive others. We need to love ourselves, accept ourselves and forgive ourselves.

Stop pulling yourself down. You are fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139:14. You are not ugly. When a person says something hurtful to you don't bring your weaknesses into the mix and blame yourself and pull yourself apart. Forgive them and yourself and whatever part you had in it and move on. Easier said than done I know but we need to at least try and make things right instead of covering things over with layers of dirt and grime and guilt.

When we focus on ourselves we take our focus off God. When things like this happen run, and I mean run, don't walk, right into the arms of God. He is the ultimate healer and protector. We cannot trust our emotions or our thoughts. They lie all the time or are so fleeting that there is no point in really entertaining them.

Forgive yourself or you will waste a lot of time an energy. Your cup can't run over if it is covered in holes with temporary fixes. We need the healing of forgiveness not the temporary patch of guilt and self loathing.

I have made an art of forgiving others. I forgive others so easily but whenever someone hurts me it bumps on the wounds that I inflicted on myself. No matter how hard I try and squash it down or patch it up it always hurts. It is up to me to forgive myself so that God can heal me.

So what is it going to be? Are you sick of hurting from the damage you heaped on yourself. Are you tired of the negative words the replay in your mind? Sick of the way you mercilessly torture yourself everyday because of something you said or didn't say? Well this life is not about you. It is about Jesus and we need to let go of our egos that tell us that someone else's actions are because of us. Your husband's anger problems are not your fault. Someone else's bad day that they took out on you is not your fault. You are only in control of what you do, say and think. You cannot make anyone act a certain way. It is not your fault. Be kind to yourself. Focus on what God says about you. Praise and worship Him because He has made you fearfully and wonderfully. Every inch of you is beautiful and a wonder. Honour the perfect creation God has made that is you.

Dear Jesus
You died on the cross for our sins and for this we are most grateful. We pray today for forgiveness of our own selfish and negative thoughts and the awful things we have said about ourselves regardless of the reason. Lord we pray you build us up in truth and freedom to be all that you say we are. May we come back to the heart of true worship of you Lord.
In your Holy Name we pray. Amen.


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