It seems lately that God has been teaching me a lot about forgiveness. I've discovered as receiving forgiveness, you can only receive complete forgiveness from the Lord for the things you do. However, it is important you go to the other person and admit that you've done them wrong and ask them to forgive you. After that, I believe that you are basically made right in the eyes of Christ.

I've also figured out that the only thing that unforgiveness of a person can get you is more pain and grief and more division between you and the Lord. We hold unforgiveness because we think "I want them to experience the pain that I experienced or am experiencing." In the end, if that person has asked for forgiveness from you and you still have unforgiveness towards them, the only one that's in pain is yourself. You're causing a division between you and Christ and that's where the real pain lies. Pain does not occur between two people, but rather the worst pain is when there's a rift between you and the father.

More importantly, I've learned how much I need mercy and grace in my own life in this area. Grace is getting what we don't deserve and mercy is not getting what we do deserve in our lives. I'm sure there are people in my life that have been unforgiving towards me and there use to be people in my life that I had harbored unforgiveness for. Trust me when I say, it's better to forgive them and move forward then to sit there and sulk on the fact that your feelings are hurt or that person screwed you over. That does no damage to the other person....It only does damage to yourself.

Let's just say that you do inflict damage on someone else and you hurt someone else. Is that what God would want you to do? That because you hurt, you wish to inflict pain on someone on else? Is it just me that sees something incredibly wrong with this way of thinking? Instead of hurting someone in response to being hurt, respond in kindness. Anybody can hurt someone in response to being hurt, it takes a different person to respond with kindness. "Do not overcome evil with evil, but rather overcome evil with good." That's a verse I'm guilty of not practicing as well.