Forgiving Others

After my recent change in prayers over the last few days, I have majorly improved and have a much clearer mindset now. I'm not trying to say that I never prayed or believed in God's powers before--I have. I've prayed to God on a daily basis for around five years, and my faith continues to grow in him everyday. It's just that I know I have to change something about my relationship with God in order to grow closer to him in the future.

So far I've changed my night prayer into a Bible-study sort of conversation. I no longer use a set, memorized prayer that I created long ago, but instead read something different every night and try to find use of it in my life at the moment.

Winter break is when most of my college student coworkers come back, and not all of them left with my liking. Two of them haven't been welcome back at all by me, but I haven't said anything. Recently I worked with one and struggled to stay peaceful and to forgive her for the pain she had caused me about a year ago. Another coworker and her would always make fun of me for "never smiling" and for looking "so depressed" all the time, and it upset me. Whenever this "friend" of hers wasn't present, she would be as nice to me as possible and treat me like a friend, which drove me nuts. It agitates me when someone acts one way when someone's there and a different way when they're absent.

I asked God to help me with forgiving these two people (the other person taught me that not everyone keeps promises, and that some people will hold onto you just so that you never leave them) who bring painful memories to me when I think of them, since I want to start off 2014 in a different way--I want to be more devoted to God and his practices and I want to better myself and make my own personality shine. If I don't forgive these two people, my anger and frustration will only delay my growing faith and spirituality and will force me to take steps in the wrong direction. And I don't want that. I want sunshine, I want to be happy. I want to smile for absolutely no reason almost all of the time (which is, thankfully, becoming a habit for me!) and I want to be forgiving. I constantly hold grudges, mostly towards myself, and bring myself down, thinking that I'm not good enough, even when I know that I have such potential.

Today I went to work for lunch, and (surprise surprise) one of the people were working. I've been struggling to be nice with her for the past two days, but I am satisfied with where our conversation went today. I asked her about her college experience and she asked me a couple questions in return, and we remained friendly and sympathetic towards each other. I felt no need to try and hurt her for the pain she had caused me a while back, and I'm grateful that I am strong enough to forgive others. I know that I most likely have a couple more conversations to go with her before I fully forgive her and learn to leave those memories in the past, but it's off to a wondrous start that I'm happy with.

I have a lot of things in mind for next year, and most of all I really just want to find great people out there. I want to make new friends who share my spiritual beliefs and who are hardworking individuals. I want to find people who have a dream, like I do, and are passionate enough to put the effort into making it happen. I also want to fully love God and to find that hidden part of myself during this journey, which I will update on a regular basis.

Baylee