Seven Sacrifices to Joy

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Oh, it’s so good to write from my heart to yours! I pray that my learned lesson acts as preventative medicine for you in your journey toward Destination? Joyful! ™ Grab your coffee and let’s get back to the second sacrifice that makes our Father smile, a sacrifice of righteousness.
In what other ways might we offer up a Sacrifice of Righteousness? As I considered that question in my own life, and did some research in others’ lives, I realized there are some very important elements that go along with offering up a Sacrifice of Righteousness and they have to do with the condition of the heart!
Here’s something to think about: the more room you give someone in your heart, the more power they have over you. Could this be why relationships/others are the most challenging lessons in the classroom of life?
Wow, a light just went on for me … like a shooting star in the middle of the night that thinks no one is watching. Could keeping score prevent us from offering a Sacrifice of Righteousness? ABSODARNLUTELY! I’ve seen it over and over again in the Relationship trenches. And again, not to belabor my experience, as I listened to this person bring up perceived wrongs from months prior, I was stunned into silence as I realized that not only was she receiving and perceiving information incorrectly, but she had been keeping score so by the time we met to resolve these things that had become issues unbeknownst to me, she was like a pot boiling over. I truly felt compassion for her as I realized life had taught her to become a great score-keeper!
When people cannot get past an old hurt because they choose not to forgive and let go, they do not move forward in life. Instead, they stay stuck and often get buried in unresolved misperceptions.
But, you say, it doesn’t mean I’m going to forget … is forgiveness and forgetting the same thing? Ah, such a good question. I wish by forgiving that we could forget, and for some things it is possible, but for some things, especially matters of the flesh, forgetting becomes a little more difficult. In our relationship trench class last week, someone asked me about that, and I could see that they were truly struggling to understand. As I looked around the room, I could literally see the expectancy on almost every face in the class. I took a deep breath in, calling upon Him to speak through me as I thought of the least complicated way to explain the difference.
I pointed to my husband as I began. “That man has hurt me before … many times; and I have hurt him. But I don’t remember what he’s done that has caused my heart to hurt; I haven’t been keeping score, and neither has he, so we’ve been able to move forward. And then there’s the things that my step-dad did to me … things that I do not wish to glorify by speaking about, but because they were done to my flesh, and the flesh has a memory all of its own, many of those things have not been forgotten but I have forgiven him and have moved victoriously forward in my life. How do I know? My painful past has been used to fuel my passion and His platform!”
You could have heard a pin drop and I continued.
“Now, if there’s something that comes up and you feel a little pricking, a little poking that causes you the slightest twinge, then there’s still some un-forgiveness in there and the best thing to do is to confess it. Some things take a process to forgive … “
I think they got it; did you? Let me leave you with one final thought on this type of Sacrifice of Righteousness:
Forgetting cannot be used as a crutch to never make my way up Forgiveness Road!
Learning to offer up a Sacrifice of Righteousness,

 Evinda