Bearing with one another and, if one of you has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Colossians 3:13 esv

I have trust issues. I have to fight against my selfish ways when it comes to trusting others. My father was an alcoholic and had other undiagnosed mental health issues and I felt a lot of rejection and betrayal in my formative years. Life was confusing and it left me feeling as if I were alone and If I wanted something done I had to ‘make things happen’. Maybe you can relate, I often say that our parents do the best they can with what they have, but their best sucked. They were never created to be able to meet all of our needs; no one person ever was. If that were the case we would never need a savior.
So when it comes to forgiveness I feel as if I have to work extra hard at it.  To survive the emotional disconnect from my parents, I developed some pretty maladaptive ways. I can cut you out of my life and never look back, the flip side of that is if I let you in I’m loyal to a fault. This leads to me being hurt deeply by those I let in because I place unrealistic expectations on them. A phrase that I lean into a lot is ‘unrealistic expectations lead to premeditated resentments’. When I start to feel hurt and offended I can usually trace it back to placing unrealistic expectations on others. I have to own my part in the relationship breakdown. Sometimes I do have to set a boundary with others and the relationship does have to be severed. Sometimes I think God removes people from our lives because they can’t come where we’re going. Either because We will look to them for affirmation and confirmation that We’re doing what We’re supposed to be doing or because they will hold us back, because they can’t see the change we have made or get past our past.  Even Jesus struggled with this, Mark 6:1-6 tells his experience with being rejected because of his heritage and where he came from.
Even when we have to set a boundary and allow others the freedom for their decisions and choices, we want to walk in forgiveness and do it quickly. I believe this is the greatest stronghold the enemy uses in our life to prevent us from making any real progress in our lives. Any addict or alcoholic who attends regular 12 step fellowship will tell you that resentments are at the core of their disease. Any person in long term recovery will tell you that they truly became free from the obsession to use after they began to forgive and stop letting others “live rent free in their head!” To truly live free is to forgive.
Maybe, you’re like me and you struggle with forgiveness. Here are some steps that I take to move quickly into obedience- because we don’t want the devil to get a foothold.

1. I declare forgiveness- at the onset of offense I declare that the other person is forgiven and I start to pray for them and for myself that God would not let the offense  take root.

2. I remind myself of the times I have been unforgivable. If I’m honest I usually can pinpoint the times when I have done the exact thing to someone else that I am so offended by this person doing. And even if I can’t see that I can remind myself of something else I have done to others.

3. I pray. “Bless them, change me!” It’s amazing when I start to pray blessings upon them and pray that simple prayer, my perspective changes. I become more forgiving and become more compassionate toward them. I see them for their humanity and I am reminded that we all are sinners saved by grace.

I know that some things need more than a three step process to get through. I do not want this post to be a substitution for good sound counseling. There are many professional counselors through the https://AACC.net website And you can also go to https://psychologytoday.com for a listing of professional counselors in your area. Word of mouth is also a great way to find professional help so ask someone you trust who they might recommend.