Powerful Forgiveness

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