Greetings awakened ones!
Today's lesson is very helpful if you have a habit of going over things in your mind over and over and over again. While reflection is valuable to our growth, our author makes a great distinction between "reflecting" and "renuminating".
Renuminating merely amounts to looking back and beating yourself up or aimlessly going over what
you should or should not have done. Reflecting involves attaining meaningful insightsnand understanding
I have done my share of ruminating rather than reflecting! I found myself involved multiple times a day, playing out made up situations with various scenarios and outcomes—his time all in MY favor. But all I was doing was wearing myself out. This went on for weeks. Oddly enough, in the end, the person told me, "I wish you forgiveness." At the time that just made me angry. How dare he? Months later (or was it years?) I realized that's exactly what I needed: To forgive.
ReplyDeleteThat's when I began to look at the situation from the other side and questioned how MY actions may have perpetrated this outcome. Was I being as supportive as I thought? Was I being the loving child of God I could have been? Not entirely.
I finally moved on from those negative feelings and can even reflect on the "good times" now. Forgiveness is a wonderful gift from God and it works wonders.