This is a blog written by my girlfriend. It has challenged me and I hope it does the same for you.

Forgiveness has been on my mind a lot these past couple of days. I wanted to start off the New Year with an open heart and mind and one of the things I need to do is to forgive and hope to be forgiven. Something that I struggle with is letting someone forgive me. I have hurt and disappointed many people this year and even if I have received a verbal apology from them, I don't always forgive myself. I want to apologize to all those people who I have hurt over my life span. I know it seems really insincere, but I long to be forgiven by them. I can read over and over in my bible how Christ has forgiven us, and to me this is my excuse for continuing in sin. "Oh well God will just forgive me if I lie to my mom" or "I know that this one drink won't stop me from going to heaven because I am forgiven". But the truth is when someone apologizes to you over and over again for lying or cheating, you don't want to forgive them. I mean it is human nature. So I sometimes wonder why God still forgives me for having another drink, when I know if someone did that to me, I would be done. But God has this never-ending love for us that I can't even wrap my mind around. I wish that I could love like that. But the honest truth is I have yet to forgive many people for the hurt that they have caused me, and that is what separates me from God. And it is building a huge wall between He and I. In this book I am reading called When God Writes Your Love Story the topic of marriage is brought up countless times. One of the things that really stuck out for me was that the key from keeping a marriage from ending in divorce is forgiveness. If people could just forgive each other that would save so many marriages. I am someone who grew up dreaming of becoming a wife and mother, and I know that in the forgiveness department is somewhere that needs the most work.

So the bottom line and where I was trying to go with writing this is, Forgive one another and be Forgiven. Hate is just more weight on the scale that you don't need. So my New Years resolution is to forgive others just as Christ forgave me. Christian or not Forgiveness will change and reshape your life!

With Love,
Krista