Has a grudge ever helped you?

He was 78 years old and she was 70 when they came for mentoring after being married for 35 years. He had hurt her when he had danced too long with another woman at a function 34 years earlier! For 34 years she pulled the baggage of unforgiveness around with her wherever she went and unlike the rolling stone which gathers no moss this baggage just gathered debris along the way!

They came for mentoring because they realised that they might not have that long to live and they wanted to spend the remaining part of their their lives in love and oneness!! Better late than never but, oh how different their lives could have been!!

Resolving conflict requires forgiveness.

No matter how hard two people try to love and please each other, they will fail. With failure comes hurt, and the only ultimate relief for hurt is the soothing salve of forgiveness. For relationships to work we are to be forgivers, and marriage—probably more so than any other relationship presents frequent opportunities to practice.

The key to maintaining an open, intimate, and happy marriage is to ask for and grant forgiveness quickly. And the ability to do that is tied to each individual’s relationship with God.

Jesus gave a clear command “and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors” (from The Lord’s prayer). The instruction is clear: we are to be forgivers.

Forgiving means giving up resentment and the desire to punish. By an act of your will, you let the other person off the hook. Someone once said, “unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.” By not forgiving you may be protecting your need to be right, but you give up your only chance at freedom and peace.

Forgiveness, of course, doesn’t mean that we ignore the hurt, it just means that we choose not to let the hurt consume our emotional energy. We let the anger go so we can enjoy the rest of life.

Consider the question – has a grudge ever helped you?