Forgiveness - for love or loss

We never want to wait until someone is gone to forgive them. I once wrote:

When I forgive it sets me free
When I don't, the one it chains is me

Too often people think that "moving past" something equals "forgiveness".
But forgiveness is a point of reconciliation that occurs in one's heart, whereas "moving past" is actually absence of forgiveness, as it attempts to "not deal" with the matter.
It is great to move past, after forgiving, but missing that first step sets one up for bottled up anger and a potential for bitterness.

One of the things that often creates opportunities for forgiveness is mis-based interpreted motives... in other words "what we think the person meant by it".

But what if that was not the case at all? I teach a temperament workshop that helps people understand each other (and themselves) better using color analogies. I am still overjoyed every time someone comes to true forgiveness of someone in a session. 

When we think of healthy relationships, often we think of spouses, boyfriend-girlfriend, etc., but in reality, every single person we engage with each day is a level of relationship. You can see more about "levels of relationship" in my book Color By Design, chapter 10, but essentially, think about your parents, you grandparents, cousins, teachers, mentors, the clerk at the bank - all relationships. Who offended you? Who did you wrong? What if you could see their true intention behind the action or statement? 

Maybe it would actually have been rude or from a point of malice, but maybe not. I had a professional lady come to forgiveness of her cousin after thirty years of not inviting her to go anywhere, simply because through the workshop she saw her cousin for the very first time through color.

God designed us to think in unique ways. This is an intentional design so that we can come together and meet each others needs, so that we will have to rely on each other and come into relationship to obtain our best collective abilities. If we learn to understand this design, we will see each other differently. We will understand and value the perspective of others in powerful ways, and very likely come to forgiveness that we have been withholding. 

Freedom comes with forgiveness in so many ways. Make it a priority today.