by: Carrie Mazzella

Before I found God’s precious freedom of forgiveness, my heart was hopelessly tangled in struggles to forgive. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I had created a junk drawer of sorts in my heart. When I was hurt or wronged, I took my rotten feelings and put them inside. It started with a big wrong, so it seemed like the right thing to do. I was young, I couldn’t possibly deal with how I felt at the time, so I just stashed it away for later to make sure I could function right now. After all, I was right and “they” were wrong. I felt righteous and justified holding onto my pain and this system seemed to work for me… until it didn’t. I wanted to forgive. I even believed and mostly acted as if I had. But truthfully, I hadn’t. And time and time again, as new things hurt me, I added them to the collection in my drawer. It seemed convenient, after all, I had already created the space for it. We all know what happens in a junk drawer over time. Every little and BIG thing living in there become a tangled, misplaced, damaged version of what it was, yet somehow worse. It gets filled to overflowing with things we look at and wonder, “why in the world is this still here?”

This is where I found myself. Tangled up, anxious, angry, distracted, unhappy, tired, wasting precious time and energy fighting to ignore what needed to be dealt with. All the things I had tried to stash out of my sight had become a great big mess in my heart. This is when God so graciously told me it was time to clean up this mess.

I needed freedom, to let go, to forgive. I needed God to help me clean out my heart.

It takes time and God’s grace and direction to let go of all that stashed junk. The pain of being wronged seems to grow when trapped inside. It will get comfortable inside your heart until it is forced to leave.

I’d like to encourage you to take a step towards freedom today. Peek inside that dark place where you are stashing your hurts and ask for God for help letting go. Seek Godly counsel, lean in, work for freedom. God is gracious, patient and ready to carry you through the process. Allow Him to forgive through you. He desires your whole heart.