I've been thinking about forgiveness. Everyone has that one person that they pushed away or ignored at one point or another out of anger. Anger is what blocks us from forgiveness because it says that what you do to me, I will do in turn to get back at you. Then it becomes the cycle between two people, one hurts one, then one hurts them back, then they hurt them back. It never stops until someone gets up on the cross and consumes the anger and dissipates it. Not returning hurt for hurt, but instead spewing forth love. A great example of a Saint doing this is Blessed Mother Teresa.
One day Mother Teresa went to a local bakery to ask for bread for the starving children in the orphanage. The baker, outraged at people begging for bread from him, spat in her face and refused. Mother Teresa calmly took out her handkerchief, wiped the spit from her face and said to the baker, “Okay, that was for me. Now what about the bread for the orphans?”
The baker, shamed by her response, gave her the bread she wanted.
The point is not to flee, or to be a door mat for others, but to stand your ground and mirror the person back to themselves. To say, the cycle of anger ends with me. Love, bless, and pray for your enemy. Matt 5:46 "For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?" The world tells you that they don't deserve it, that they won't appreciate it, that they will never change. But take Blessed Mother Teresa's word, "It was never between you and them anyway." It's between you and God, and God demands us to love our neighbor.
So if there is a family member you haven't talked to in a long time, why don't you call them or email them and end it. Be the person that ends the cycle, dissipates the anger, and call them into a greater love.
