Forgiveness releases a weight off of our shoulders. That doesn't mean that just because you forgive someone you forget. You don’t have to give them a get-out-of-jail-free pass, you can still hold your boundaries, hold them accountable for mistreating you, and also forgive them.
I want to share with you something that I've had to forgive someone else for. I had to forgive some people for sexually abusing me as a young child. Because of this I had to be careful in all of my relationships. I had to figure out when I was safe, even in friendships. I attracted a lot of controlling people into my life. I really had to put up boundaries and decide what was okay for me and what wasn't because I had been abused for so long. I did end up standing up for myself on a few of the occasions of the sexual abuse. It took awhile for me to gain the courage to say, NO! I had been abused on & off for years. I was probably age 7 at the time I started saying no this is not okay. In the end, I can forgive the situation, forgive the people that abused me, and use it for good.
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