My friend’s words fell to the floor and shattered like glass. I heard him speak, but something inside of me stole the intention of these robust affirmations of life and left them empty and brittle. I had heard this before and nothing happened. I had previously taken these same steps and had accomplished to develop frustration and contention. I thought I had managed to escape any real damage last time, but was just now realizing that a cynicism had crept in where there had previously been hope. It was more damaging than I had anticipated.

Days and weeks hurried by and my attitude grew. As this happened, it seemed as though I saw my old friend everywhere I went. At the mall, downtown, at the movie theater and at church. Occasionally, I felt as though he was following me. At one point, it seemed as though he had trailed behind me from one side of our large church, to the other. Every time I turned around, he was right over my shoulder talking to the person I had just spoken with or doing something close by. All I could do was move faster and eventually just leave to prevent a conversation. He had let me down again and I was fighting it.

I’m not one that likes promises. My theology begins at God is good but following close behind I know that everyone sucks at life. Hence the need for a savior. I don’t like promises because people tend to forget about them. We don’t always do what we said we would. We let people down and hurt them.

In John 20:23, Jesus says,
“If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good.
If you don’t forgive sins,
what are you going to do with them?”

If you don’t forgive them, you’ll keep them and they’ll grow into something akin to a parasitic conjoined twin that feeds off any chance at joy and restoration you might have. That, or else you’ll just repackage them into awesome little bundles of cynicism and dole them out to people who probably deserve it but not necessarily from you. Either way, you’ll carry it around.

Carrying it around means that it will be everywhere, just like my old friend.

*Ps- I’m over this now and I’m simply reflecting on the process. . . .