Relationships

Situations we all have to deal with--sometimes painful and sometimes painless.

I am no expert on this subject 'cause I don't think I've dealt with that many people.

Except you count all the people I've had to associate myself with over the years.

The fact still remains that as time goes on we will still meet a million zillion other people and there's no guarantee that we will like any of them. The sad fact is that we might end up liking those who will hurt us the most.

Whenever I think of all the people that I'd rather not deal with, I remember a story a friend told me in junior high about keeping malice.

There was a lady who was so holy that there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was going to end up in heaven. After several years of living purely, she died. As she approached the gate of heaven an angel stopped her. She thought he had come over to welcome her so she answered all the questions he had for her. After this long interview, she asks if she can go in through the gates and the angel says no. She is shocked and reminds the angel of how holy she had been all her life. He tells her that he knows that she has been a very holy person but she still couldn't come in. Confused, she asks him why she can't go in. He tells her that despite her holy acts she had never forgiven anyone who offended her and since she was unable to forgive, she could not come in. So this very holy woman ended up in hell.

Like this woman most of us find it difficult to forgive those that have offended us. But think of it this way, if we want God to forgive us for all those little white lies we tell and all the other big sins we've committed, why can't we do the same.

I've done and said several things that hurt the people I care about the most and I've even had people say things to me that I couldn't believe with my ears. Sometimes I sit and wonder why we say the things we say and I remember the saying "To err is human; to forgive divine." We are all the same. Yeah we have perfectionists but then are those people really perfect. I don't think so. We all have our faults; learning to understand others and ourselves is the first step. Living with our decisions and accepting them is the second. These are the two most difficult tasks I can think of. Forgiveness and learning to move on that's the easy part. The problem is whther or not we can deal with our decisions.