Day 95 - Grudge Stuff (Throw ... Twice!)

I don't know what else to label these items collectively than "Grudge Stuff": a couple of letters, a print out of a blog entry, and some other documents - all dealing with my rocky relationship with a supervising pastor who greatly offended my wife and me.

I've mentioned several times here how bad my memory is.  When it comes to "Forgive and forget", forgetting is the easy part for me.  Which is why I held on to this grudge stuff.  I didn't want to forget because I didn't want to forgive.

So I found these items in a box I was sorting through and I reread them all ... and plenty of anger and hurt returned afresh.  (I didn't even mention them to Melissa - I didn't want to see her stew!)

This is stuff from six years ago and this individual played a large roll in catapulting me out of church ministry and into teaching.

And even though I know it doesn't necessarily mean that I have completely forgiven this man, I do feel like I took an important step towards total forgiveness when I threw this grudge stuff away.

Here's how crooked my heart is:  I had the throw the darned things away TWICE.

Before I threw away the physical papers, I sat down and recorded some of the key words and phrases that got me so riled up.  Plenty of them!  I recorded them here in my rough draft for this blog.  And only then did I throw away the papers.

I suppose the dark part of my heart wanted to drag this pastor through the dirt a bit ... publicly. (Even though I would never name him here.)   And the needy part of my heart wanted to highlight the offenses in detail in order to elicit some sympathy from anybody who might happen to read this blog.  (Maybe I could insert a link to some sad violin music here while I'm at it!)

But ultimately I Threw the grudge stuff away a second time by hitting the Delete button here.  So it's really gone now and, even though I have a ways to go yet (obviously), I feel cleaner and more spiritually healthy than I felt while I was trying to preserve some part of the grudge stuff. 

When we consider all that the True and Holy God of Heaven has forgiven us, do we have a right to hold onto some minor grievance with a brother or sister here on earth?  The parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35 can be a rather scary story if we take it seriously!