Days 3 & 4 Forgiveness

One thing I forgive myself for is for having a lapse of time when I did not/could not work on writing my book. This goal has been present in my life ever since I was a child; certainly by now I have enough rich life experience to fill the pages! It's difficult (to say the least) to stay focused on goals when you have bipolar/depression illness that it not being treated properly. I must admit to my natural penchant for procrastination and possibly even laziness. Horrors! ;-) Although focus remains my biggest challenge; also the discipline to write something every day is tough. I'd rather waste my time playing Farmville on Facebook, surfing the net or watching movies!

On the subject of forgiving someone else, a person immediately comes to mind who I am challenged to forgive. I am really working on it, but it will take time and I know I need to give myself however long it takes. This person ( I'll call them X) was (I thought) my soulmate and life partner. I left my beloved California to move to PA for the relationship. After seven years it is now over with no possibility of any real friendship. It took me almost three years to completely let go. That's actually another thing that I am working on forgiving myself for. I volunteered to suffer psychological and religious/spiritual abuse over those three years all in the name of love. I now am beginning to realize how much my intimate relationships have been colored by romanticism. Romance is not necessarily based in reality and coupled with codependency issues, it can be downright dangerous and unhealthy. I lost my identity in the controlling influence of letting someone else know what's best for me. The reasons I can have any forgiveness at all are threefold: God (specifically Jesus/Spirit within me), knowing that most of the damage done by X was unintentional and well meaning and the knowledge of how much I learned and grew stronger in the adversity of this relationship. I do thank God that it is over finally; I am genuinely free now in my life as an open/accepting Christian rather than a condemning and closed minded Christian. Many Fundamentalist Traditional Christians qualify in this category as they take the Bible literally and place more importance on it than the real life of Jesus as told in all four gospels. I don't care who agrees with me or not; I can no longer, for the sake of my own sanity, stay quiet on this division within Christian churches. Jesus did not then and would not now discriminate against anyone, period.  By the way, X is in the traditional camp to the max.