"The lies that are the hardest to overcome are the ones we tell ourselves about the people we love the most." I was at work today listening to Pastor T.D. Jakes on the internet and he was talking about how we hold on to our issues and we let it consumes us, that we spend our time being the person that someone else labeled us, which gives them power over our lives. It is a message I have heard a few times and I believe in the validity of the message I really do, but then I started to think (as usual) and analyze the concept in its entirety and I wondered, how do you "let go" and forgive someone, how do you take the power they have over you back if you have never faced the "label" or the issue you have with that person. How do you forgive someone for something they don't know they did? And if you do "forgive" them how do you know it is real, that you have really let go?
I've had someone create and issue in my life, I've had someone make me constantly feel a deep sense of anger, resentment, and sadness for their choices that effected MY life. And I voiced my feelings with that person, after which I spent a good amount of time holding on to the hurt that that person created and then one day after hearing this message again, (from Pastor Coleman) I let go! I forgave. So I understand that it is a process and that it takes time, but what concerns me, what makes me question the message as an incomplete one is that it does not address how to forgive. It seems to me that forgiveness has a process, that to heal you have to make your hurt known in some way, and the only way I've ever seen that worked to talk about it. But then that begs the question , can you talk to just anybody about it?
So here is my over all question and concern for the hurt that people feel. How do you began to heal, take back your power, remove someone else's label, and forgive when the person that has harmed you, hurt you, pissed you off, deceived you, lied to you, etc. does not know that thats how you feel or that that is what they have done?
