Day 21 of 21 Days of Prayer Outside the Box
I may have repeated this forgiveness prayer more than any other. It seems when I ask for God to teach me true perspective it is about a relationship with another person that could use forgiveness more than 90 percent of the time. When I first started learning about forgiveness I thought I only had a couple people I needed to forgive. I thought I didn't hold many grudges. I thought I was very forgiving and only had difficulty forgiving a very few.
My first really big aha was when someone told me I wouldn't reach forgiveness with those few people if I didn't allow myself to release the anger I harbored in a healthy way. I had no idea how angry I was.
I didn't even know anger could be released in a healthy way. So I started down a journey for many years learning about that.
On the journey I found that actually I spent a lot more time than I wanted to admit in anger. I found that I needed to forgive. I learned that forgiveness was not something I did for the other person. I found ultimately that the person I most needed to forgive was myself.
So here is the prayer my mentor gave me. I use it a lot like affirmative prayer from Day 5.
I love you.
I bless you.
I release you.
I fully and freely forgive you.
Now be on you way.
I have used it in this way for years. The last line reminds me of a gentler version of the Day 19 prayer. (Sometimes Day 19 may need to proceed this prayer). Recently I have begun to change the last line to "May your life be filled with joy." Forgiveness has been a journey and a process for me, a freeing journey and process.
Happy New Year
