Well, I have been facing a number of rather huge difficulties lately. Let's just say a number of people who are very important to me have let me down in a big way. But as you see, from the title of this blog, I consider it my responsibility as A True Friend to wholeheartedly forgive.
Let me tell you about an amusing experience I had many years ago. If you ever travel public transportation, you may be aware that if you chitchat with a fellow passenger, sometimes the subject of religion comes up. And so, one day when I was on a paratransit van, the driver and I began conversing. I, at that period of my life was not a believer in Jesus Christ, as I am now, and I told him so. He said to me, "Well you know what the Bible says 'every knee shall bow and every tongue confess'". He cracked up at my response: "Well why don't you worry about your knees and your tongue, and I will worry about my knees and my tongue".
This is what I am doing today. I am taking concern for my knees and my tongue. And I realize that as a Christian, I am called upon to let go of even the most horrific disappointments that I experience in people. I am here with you now, trying to do that.
My mother was an intelligent women, and very well read, and she had committed to memory a very very significant piece of writing and a life changing writing for all who respect it. Talking about Rudyard Kipling's poem "If". And I bring to mind now the second line:
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
Yet make allowance for their doubting too.
You have to be generous of heart, to make that allowance for the doubting others feel about you. Even more, you have to be very strong, to at the same time, continue to retain that faith in yourself and the things you stand for.
And so, set yourself free today! Stop waiting for the approval of those who may never be capable of giving it. Forgive them, and just let it go. Continue to live for what you believe is right, whether others agree or not.
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