Forgive and Forget!

This guest post by Candice Williams is guaranteed to inspire you as you seek to chart your course for 2016. Candice Williams is a Nurse by profession but is also an excellent writer, wife, mother and friend. She is currently working as a missionary in the Federated States of Micronesia. Please read and be blessed.

New Year resolutions seems so simple but hard. Part of that commitment means to forget and forgive the past. Forgetting and forgiving means choosing to set you free on a course where the biggest obstacle is no longer the flashing neon sign that says “Me”. The solution to resolutions is not merely to make new ones, it is also choosing to let go of memories that invoke fear.

Such power they hold in controlling the mind, though dead they come alive to taunt and ridicule when attempting to do things anew. These memories are like “minions” of the mind and they don’t care if you try, as long as you do half your best and never fully achieve the success you’d hoped for. Then the recent “failure” is seized and used as an effective tool to wreak additional havoc.

In medicine the term croup-countercoup comes to mind, it is an injury involving the brain where both sides are damaged following a sudden impact. The side that received the initial impact (coup) or blow and the side opposite the initial impact (countercoup) occur when the force of the initial blow is so great that it causes brain damage at the site where the brain hits the skull. Then the force of this “initial impact” causes additional damage as the brain moves in the opposite direction hitting the other side of the skull. I liken it to the brain playing “ping pong” within the skull.

Similarly in life, our initial experiences serves as the impact and the force of that experience hitting against us causes pain, and rightly so; however, further injustice is done when we allow that painful experience to control us, forging us into a weapon used against ourselves. No other weapon is as effective and proves to be as fatal! That is why it is necessary to forget. Forget what is behind and forge ahead, isn’t that what the apostle Paul said (Philippians 3:13)? Paul knew that a life well lived is a life straining towards a mark, a life with purpose.

Forget that you’ve tried a hundred times before, and try once more with the same excitement, the same determination as if it were the first time. Next, forgive yourself and forgive yourself again! I’m sure you haven’t met the 70 times 7 quota. It’s not just meant for others. Humbly look into that mirror and pardon “you”.  This gift called the “present” is meant to be seized. Be fully committed to the here and now because herein lies the power to awaken desire and the will once awakened is a great force of nature, not to be trifled with! Do you have doubts? Have you seen the will of a two year old in action? Seize the moment! Gain victory after victory and strength will be added to resolve which in return towers over the failures of yesterday.

God has done this! God has given you my friend this incredible mind that can turn any failure into the best success story. Won’t you trust Him with the heart of a child to forgive and forget the past?