Forgiving Yourself for Not Forgiving Sooner

“It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”

Lamentations 3:22

My son, my daughter, there's a kind of guilt I see in you: the guilt of having taken years to forgive someone, or of having held onto resentment for far too long, even knowing I was asking for something else. Now that you have finally forgiven, another accusation comes: why didn't I do this sooner? How much time did I waste on hatred?

I don't use a clock to measure my grace over you. My mercies are new every morning, which means today is a fresh day, without the weight of yesterday. The time it took you to get here doesn't cancel out the miracle of having arrived. So many people never make it to forgiveness. You did.

Stop blaming yourself for the path that brought you to today's freedom. Sometimes the process of forgiving is long because the wound was deep, and that isn't weakness, it's humanity. I celebrate this victory with you, without holding the time it took against you.