Love conquers. Love challenges. Love encourages. Love changes things.
With love comes forgiveness. This is something that I struggle with personally.
I am a grudge holder. I have a hard time letting things go. I take things to heart.
Lately I've been learning an important lesson: that forgiveness is freedom. By forgiving someone you not only free them, but you free yourself. You are no longer letting negative feelings invade and fester in your heart.
Forgiving someone isn't saying that you agree with what they did or even that what they did was okay. Forgiving someone is releasing yourself from the burden that you're carrying around. Forgiveness is not a feeling, but a choice. Grudges hold you back, but forgiveness pushes you forward.
Photo credit: Meg Cady Photography
I challenge you to choose forgiveness. I'll take it a step further. I challenge you to choose forgiveness even if the person that you're forgiving isn't sorry.
Today, I'm choosing forgiveness. Today, I am free.
I saw this excerpt from Louis De Bernières' Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the beauty of it left me speechless.
"Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being 'in love' which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two."
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