Beloved Child,
Your Grandmother used to say that to you when you didn’t really understand her meaning. “Put it down and let it walk.” She had concerns for your ability to keep moving in spite of strife or bad feelings. I have a concern about one thing – the extra weight you’re carrying. Not the couple of pounds from your holiday celebrations. They are not the problem.
It’s the burden that’s weighing down your heart. That spat you can’t forget. That word that digs so deeply in your heart. That slight that sent you into a spin. You think you’ve let it go. You think you’ve moved on.
But who could – when someone you have loved so much has hurt you so badly. When you trusted them so much. When you actually put your life in their hands. Only to have them stab you in the back. To have them take another’s side against you. To have them return hatred for the love you gave.
They do need to do penance for their misdeed. They need to be chastised in some way. And that’s my work. But you, my Dear, have work to do also. Put it down and let it walk. I know you’re the injured one, but you have work to do. And it’s life changing, lifesaving work. Your life, not theirs. Carrying the memory of a hurt and refusing to let it go is like carrying a dead body on your shoulders. A very wise person said, ”Unforgiveness is like choosing to stay trapped in a jail cell of bitterness, serving time for someone else’s crime.”
Believe me. It is injury to your soul and illness to your body. It is like tying cement blocks to a spirit that wants to soar.
I know you want to. I gave you that desire. And I blow on it regularly to keep it aflame.
I know you want to forgive, even think you already have. But this is what you need to do.
In your quiet time, think it through; identify the pain and the perpetrator. Then purpose in your heart to forgive. You can’t finish the process. That’s my work.
But you must not only initiate it, you must be faithful to it. You have to change your behavior toward the person as if the work is already done. And before you know it, the new feelings you’ve “perpetrated” will have become second nature. Before you know it the work will be complete and you won’t even know when it happened.
Love Always
Your Heavenly Father
Dorothy Scott Boulware 