You Need to Forgive Yourself

 

The other night my family and I were watching a movie together. One of the main characters had been a famous skier until an injury had cut his career short. He feared his hometown for he felt everyone would be angry with him for having failed their expectations. When he finally admitted his fears to his old coach his coach responded by saying that no one was mad at him. And though he could no longer compete he could coach skiing and his old coach concluded by saying, "You need to trust yourself." 

My 11-year-old brother who was sitting near me added quietly, "You need to forgive yourself."

Wow! His insight into the situation amazed me. He was right. 

How often do I find myself like this downcast skier, hanging my head in shame for not meeting the expectations set before me? But whose expectations are they? More often than not they are my own. I know the Lord loves me unconditionally and forgives me to forgetfulness so why do I still hang my head in shame? 

Because I have failed to live up to what I think I should be. If I make a blunder His forgiveness is not good enough because I should not have done that in the first place. Or perhaps in God's eyes I have truly done no wrong, but I didn't meet my own expectations of myself. These expectations may be built from true or perceived pressures from those around me, but deep down they are my own. I chose to take them on, to set the bar at an impossibly high and unrealistic standard. 

For highly driven type A personalities, following the Lord can feel very messy, inefficient and unstructured. Instead of just following along and enjoying the scenery we are always looking for ways to speed up the self-improvement process. Anything that slows down forward motion should be done away with. 

Example One: Emotions.

These just get in the way and cause problems! It says to "Be angry and do not sin" (Psalm 4:4) That's a hard line to figure out, and if you cross it then you have to cool down and forgive someone. Instead lets just never get angry (aka stuff our anger and lie to ourselves that it's not there.) Problem solved! What about disappointment? It's so depressing and sad. Let's just never hope for anything and then we will never have to deal with it (aka suppress hope and still feel miserable inside.) Problem solved! 

Wrong! Problem not solved. 

I have a one year old Shih Tzu/Poodle who's 5.5 lbs of carefree living. One of her favorite things is to  "run her laps"! She happily takes off running as fast as she can go in large loops around the yard or small circles on the rug in our basement family room. The big panting smile on her little face and her dark sparkling eyes exude so much life. She doesn't have a care in the world because she's fully dependent and confident in my care for her. 

The expectations and rules we have for ourselves seem admirable in our minds, but they ultimately become our prison. We can no longer run wildly like my puppy in the confidence of our Father's love and care. No, we can hardly take a step without the anxiety of making a mistake. No matter how badly we want to, we can't take care of ourselves. We can't fix ourselves. And we can't control any aspect of this life. But we can choose, choose to accept His sovereignty, His love, His care and His acceptance of us just as we are.

Christ took care of sin at the cross. He has forgiven you. It's time to forgive yourself - to forgive yourself for not being who you want yourself to be. You cannot do it yourself, you need a Savior and thank the Lord, there is one!   

Dear Father, give us the grace to forgive ourselves and open our eyes to see ourselves the way You do. Loved, treasured, unique and special. May we once again run freely in the confidence that comes from knowing You will never let us go. Amen.