I am coming to realize that being gracious, forgiving, and open is far more difficult than being angry, bitter, and cold.
I am also learning that it is far more beautiful.
I can be reckless, rebellious, passionate, and wild. I have a tendency to fight back, I lack patience and am often harsh and quick to judgment. It is much easier for me to be angry and resentful than to forgive and go forward with love.
I think there is a haunting beauty to be found in people like that- who guard their hearts tightly, letting them grow cold inside a casket, but it is a sad beauty, a cold beauty. One that says, "Stay away, stay back. You are not welcome here."
An open heart- one with scars and wounds but beats in spite of it all and keeps giving and loving- has far more beauty, a refreshing loveliness beyond words.
Oftentimes I think and say people ought to live more boldly, love more freely, and be courageous...but I often put up my own walls to prevent pain, to guard my heart carefully within a casket. I withhold forgiveness and cling to an anger that has, many times in the past, reduced my heart to ashes and left me a shell of a human being. And God, in all His goodness, rescued me.
And I think I'm finally starting to see the challenges laid before me- to turn the other cheek, to honestly forgive seventy times seven times. It's going to be an uphill battle, but I'm sick of being haunted, and I'm sick of hurting like this, too frightened to do anything differently. It's going to be so much more difficult, but my purpose is clear- to love freely, forgive openly, and actually live as boldly as I wish I could.
It's time for a beautiful change.
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