FORGIVENESS

FORGIVENESS

The seasons of life can be amazingly cyclical. They are similar to the seasons of the earth in how they are always returning. The system of training is similar. You start by teaching something, then learning to control it, followed by reinforcing it, and finally refining it. This order repeats as things progress, but if a step is missed or overlooked, it can cause problems down the road when it keeps coming back.

Holding On

Sweet Water is progressing very well under Amy’s tutelage, and I’ve started to become more and more involved with her training program. Now that she’s started to fully accept humans, saddling and riding, it’s important to have other people handle her, since every person has a different feel. This way she isn’t only getting used to one person but begins to associate that the process is acceptable no matter who is working with her.

But the one thing that Sweet Water continues holding on to is tension during her saddling. The other day I spent almost a half an hour simply saddling and unsaddling her to help her improve. It was a big western saddle, so I definitely got my upper body workout in! Although she is so much better than she used to be, you can still see some tightness through her neck as the saddle is swung up, girth tightened, and girth loosened. So we are focusing on repetition until she is able to fully let it go.

Fully Let Go

As I was repeating the saddling process over and over, Amy and Sweet Water’s owner, Carol, stood by the fence watching. Amy made the comment that Sweet Water was holding on to her concern about saddling the same way that we often hold on to bitterness over some way we have been wronged. Until we are able to fully forgive, that bitterness will continue to rear its ugly head. In the same way, until Sweet Water is fully able to let go of her tension, she will continue to have trepidation about the saddling process.

Being able to fully forgive is something I have struggled with in the past, although probably everyone else has as well at some point.  A close friend of mine hurt me emotionally, and I told myself that I had forgiven her. But in reality, whenever I thought about it or the situation was brought up, a lot of anger would rise up inside me. I had a tendency to to dwell on those negative thoughts and it made me feel very angry and bitter.

One of the things that helped me finally move past this was when my husband confronted me. He said that I hadn’t truly forgiven her, and explained how he saw forgiveness in light of the relationship that I have with him. He said that unless you completely relinquish your need and desire to be right, you will never be able to forgive. In a sense, it is like wiping a slate clean. If you don’t remove those wrongs from your “score sheet,” you will continue to dwell upon them and it will eventually create a wedge.

Thankfulness

Another attitude that has helped me overcome that bitter state was thankfulness. This concept became important to me when I first read Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts." As she says in the book “We can only feel one emotion at a time so it’s impossible to give thanks and feel fear or anger.” Whenever the negative thoughts would bubble to the surface, I would choose to find a way to be thankful for how those experiences affected me, whether it was the lessons I learned from it, or the places I had gone that I wouldn’t have otherwise, or something else altogether. Choosing gratitude helped guide my outlook.

Final Thoughts

In the same way that Sweet Water needs to learn to release her tension during saddling, we need to confront the issues we are holding on to in our own lives. If it is just ignored or brushed past, often times it can cause issues when it comes up again down the road.

However, while there must be forgiveness in all disputes, that doesn’t mean that all relationships are meant to continue on. There are certain wrongs that insist upon the placement of boundaries. It is also not easy to walk through a season of forgiveness alone, and I would encourage anyone to seek guidance through a counselor or pastor.