Forgiveness...It's Not Just A Trend; It's a Way of Life (That I Suck At).

My drive-time is very often my alone time with God...that, and that awesome twilight that I have as I kind of pray myself to sleep. Of course, that drive-time is often interrupted with what I've come to call "Vehicular Tourette's" (translation: My prayers are frequently sidelined by my tendency to verbally overreact to approaching vehicles, whether or not I'm in the driver's seat), but I always try to bring it all back around. I thought this was totally abnormal, until I realized that since the God I know sees me in all of my various stages of maturity, He can handle me when I'm almost rear-ended by that moron in the SUV who just HAD to fix her makeup when my light turned red (God's heard my diatribe on women who drive vehicles larger than they can handle...and so have most of my friends, readers, and random patients who had the misfortune to ask). As I recently said (to my chagrin) to a church full of people, "God likes me, even when I've gone nuclear on my curling iron). He's God.
I'm not.
The graciousness of this realization is continuously amazing.
As I'm driving to work this morning, it dawned on me that my "spring break" has thrown me off of my pattern, so I started to pray. I found myself at a loss for words, and since a recent sermon @SG reminded me of a past place in my prayer life, I took it back to the basics of Matthew 6--The Lord's Prayer.
There was a time in my life where I could not pray, at all. I had nothing in my heart to say to God--I couldn't bring myself to trust Him with my prayers, since they'd all seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Because I knew I HAD to pray, every single day, all I said was the "Our Father." There were days when it was the cry of my heart; there were days when it was mere recitation. There were many (MANY) days where I said it with the sole resolution that I'd say it 'til I meant it, even if it was the last prayer I prayed. It's short, sweet, and to the point, and really, it can be prayed in 30 seconds or less.
Imagine how many times that can be repeated in a 30 minute drive to work.
And back.
For 2 years.
The more I pray that prayer, though, the more I fall in love with it's complexities...with it's simplicities...with it's poetry and focus. Every time I pray The Lord's Prayer, it steels my resolve.
I could take it line by line, and break it all down, but that blog would take a while to write. This morning, I was struck by the phrase "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."
I stopped praying.
It has recently come to my attention that I have a real issue with forgiveness--one that goes past being raised by an Italian father and his love of the revenge of Chuck Norris. I most definitely have some anger issues, and I have a true desire to see certain people get what I just KNOW is coming to them. Once someone is on my bad side, fahgeddaboutit. They're done. Somehow, the innocence of childhood (where my mom used to say I was the most forgiving person in the world) has been mucked over by a real bitch with a nasty right hook. I can be so stinking vicious!!! There are certain family members, coworkers, people who hated my dress, that will never know how truly angry I am with them; I lie to myself, and say that just because I've never really let them have it, that I've forgiven them, and it's all handled. Then, I lie awake at night, and think of all of the "zingers" I could have zapped them with, to make my point. Underneath it all, of course, is true hurt that I have to give to Jesus and let go. I'd rather stay mad and bitter, than forgive them, break off the muck, and get the hurt healed.
Is this the true nature of the human condition, in regards to forgiveness? Or am I alone in this?
As I was praying this phrase, "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us," I stopped, and said, "Dear God, I hope not, because I suck at forgiveness!!!! If You forgive me, according to how I've forgiven other people, then I'm so totally screwed!!!"
I hold on to past hurts and issues so tightly, even though I know there's freedom at the cross. To forgive someone, to truly let it go--I'm not sure I even begin to know how to do that. Do you just stop talking about it (even to yourself), or is that bottling it up? Do you write one of those disposable letters that you burn and never send (that would be SO unfulfilling to me)? We lay things on an altar to give to Him, yet our hands are curled so closely around them that our fingers get burnt in the offering. Or, we let our "living sacrifices" crawl off of said altar and onto our backs to weigh us down another day.
There is freedom in forgiveness. The last thing I want to hear is someone I know tell someone else that "Cassidy has a problem with forgiveness," even though it was said in jest. That truly cut me to the quick, and made me wonder how much of that statement is true? More than I'd care to admit...but if you told me about it, I'd just stay mad at you. :)
I have been forgiven for so much...God is so much bigger than me, so much bigger than my sin, than my offense; who am I, to withhold forgiveness from anyone?
Forgiveness...
Just one more reason why I'm so thankful that God is God, and that Jesus came...and tomorrow is one more day toward learning to be like Him.