5-Day Devotional To Becoming The Greatest YouParaugs

Forgiveness is a huge act of giving—you are offering the end of your anger and resentment to someone who has done you wrong. But it is also a huge act of getting, and that’s what I want to concentrate on here. When you forgive, you get an enormous amount of power in return. . . . There’s the power that comes from being freed from emotional burdens. If you’ve ever worked out while wearing weights, you know that when you take those weights off, you feel like you can move twice as fast as you did before. Forgiveness has the same kind of effect on your spirit. The long-term anger you feel toward someone else puts a huge burden on your back. You carry that around all the time. Even when you’re not feeling angry, it’s still there in the back of your mind because you haven’t fully processed the hurt you received. How much better would it feel to throw off all of that extra weight you’ve been carrying?

When you forgive, you feel emotionally lighter, and that lightness gives you the power to do way more productive stuff with your life. It really is like taking off those weights after a strenuous workout; just as you feel like you can run twice as fast with the weights off, you’ll feel you can reach twice as many goals when you get rid of the old grudges you’ve been carrying. . . .

If you can remember back to a time when you didn’t feel so guarded and protective of your emotions, you can probably remember how great it felt to connect with the people who mattered the most to you in an unburdened way. Your heart was softer then, and that softness allowed you to enjoy things that you stop enjoying when your heart hardens. That’s a power you can have back when you choose to forgive, move on from your biggest hurts, and give the important people in your life everything they deserve to receive from you.