By Robert Clements
Smelly Potatoes and A Dose of Forgiveness..!
Something that startles me no end is to hear people talk about old hurts, insults and old humiliations, and know that forgiveness has not taken place. And as I listen to bitter, shrill voice expounding on such old incidents, I want to shake them and say, “It’s you who are killing yourself carrying your bitterness on!” And more than that, “You kill present day relationships, because nobody knows when the dormant volcano within you will erupt and intrude into everyday situations!”
Dr Frank Boehm says, “My father who escaped the Holocaust believed that anger, resentment and unforgiveness bred disease of the soul, as well as the body. Swallowing a dose of forgiveness is good medicine, he told me.”
A patient came to see Dr Boehm about her constant neck pain, headaches and high blood pressure. But he couldn’t find a medical cause for her ailments. “Tell me about your life,” he then said. She told him she was in conflict with her two sisters. Recalling his father’s words, the doctor encouraged her to forgive her sisters. Years later Boehm received a letter from his patient. She had made peace with her sisters and sure enough her physical ailments had abated. “She found forgiveness and from this good health,” said Boehm.
“When you are treated unjustly by another, anger is a natural response,” says Robert Enright, professor of educational psychology and author of ‘Forgiveness is a Choice’. “But if these resentful feelings are not resolved, a grudge will form; victims may want to hold a grudge because it gives them a regained sense of control and superiority. However, when nursing a grudge you’re essentially stuck in the victim role and are inviting anger to become a companion in your everyday life and a toxin to your body!”
Let me quote from Dr Redford Williams, author of ‘Anger Kills’, “If you don’t forgive, resentment can erupt at any time and the cost to your body is ongoing. It’s like taking small doses of poison daily!”
Forgiveness is not denying you’re angry or pretending the injury didn’t happen. Forgiveness is to reframe how one feels about the offense and those seen as responsible. It is moving from continually replaying your personal grievance story to revising it so that you are no more a victim of your past.
Start small by learning how to forgive minor slights. If your wife serves you a meal which is not up to your standard, recognize that she isn’t out to get you, and forgive her.
“By changing your thinking, you can decide whether your anger is appropriate,” says Williams, “and over time you will be able to forgive tougher injuries.”
“One forgiving act is the beginning,” says Enright, “as you continue offering forgiveness, your identity will no longer be that of a victim but of one who is powerful in the face of adversity!”
Have we ever realized what a stench we raise when we carry grudges and unforgiveness around?
A kindergarten teacher decided to let her class play a game.
The teacher told each child in the class to bring along a plastic bag containing a few potatoes. Each potato would be given a name of a person that the child hated, so the number of potatoes that a child put in his or her plastic bag would depend on the number of people he or she hated.
So when the day came, every child brought some potatoes with the names of people they hated. Some had two potatoes; some four while some had up to five potatoes.
The teacher then told the children to carry the plastic bag with the potatoes in them for a week, wherever they went.
Days passed by, and the children started to complain of the unpleasant smell let out by the rotten potatoes. Besides, those having five potatoes also had to carry heavier bags. After the week, the children were relieved because the game had finally ended.
The teacher then asked the children: “How did you feel, carrying the potatoes with you for a week?” The children let out their frustrations and complained of the trouble they had to go through having to carry the heavy and smelly potatoes wherever they went.
Then the teacher told them the hidden meaning behind the game: “This is exactly the situation when you carry your hatred for somebody inside your heart,” she said, “The stench of hatred will contaminate your heart and you will carry it with you wherever you go. If you cannot tolerate the smell of rotten potatoes for just one week, can you imagine what it will be like to have the stench of hatred in your heart for a lifetime?”
Well I am sure the children learnt a lesson for life, though I wish some teacher had done the same thing for each of us, and we could have saved all those years carrying dislike, hatred and grudges in the plastic bag of our minds, right?
As I write, my thoughts go to what kind of a plastic bag God would have carried had He decided to remember all our mistakes and wrong doings? But God doesn’t do that. His forgiveness is so great that he allows us to commune and have fellowship with Him because there is no plastic bag of our stuff that He carries along and puts between.
If God can forgive, what fools we are to carry our grudges and hate, and burden ourselves with this unnecessary load.
Let’s get rid of this stinking bag of potatoes we’ve been carrying till now, by throwing our potatoes away!
Want to be healthy this year? Throw your smelly grudges away and swallow a dose of forgiveness..!
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