When Is It Time to Be Happy Again
I use to hear the sentiment "Give Me some time" but I could not identify with it. I understood from where I was what was being said. What that says is that something big has just occurred in my life and I need some time to either recover, heal, or process it. I'm aware of those sentiments but I've never known those words.
I now see that dark people are dark because their guards are up. I now see that dark people are dark because they have closed their hearts. I now see that when one is in agony they do look for others or someone to come to their side. I now see that one can be up but yet hurting down on the inside. To be happy is to say "I'm okay." But happiness is a matter of liberty. Happiness is a matter of having no alarmed injuries present in our lives. But, to be alarmed is to be wise, because the alarm is to keep things from getting in that we despise—the sorrows of injuries. So then, there's a perplexity of how to be free when one is aware of danger.
When a person has hurt you deeply it seems that we need time in that place of hurt. For what: I'm discovering: I know not why. This is a new place for me. If that person comes to apologize, yes, forgive them, but still: When is it time to be happy again? After one betrays, lies, connives, or deeply wounds and the affliction hurts you to the core, it's like to honor that sorrow that we have experienced we must never let it go. It's like unforgiveness at times is a matter of our dignity and self-respect. So then, there's that perplexity of how to be free when one is aware of danger.
It's said that forgiveness benefits not only the offender but also ourselves. Bitterness and anger will destroy us, so it is best to not hold grudges. Forgiveness, then, is for us to become free. So, do we forgive but not forget, or do we forget when we forgive? One who has a life to live but has to continually keep looking over their back cannot wholly enjoy what's before them. So, then the perplexity arrives: How to be free when one is aware of danger?
"These things I have spoken unto you; that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world," One has spoken. The perplexity has been resolved. We must not be frightened of danger. We must not be frightened to love. One has come and overcome the hurts and sorrows of this world so that we might have peace by the grace of God that is in Him. The hurts and sorrows are woes that he can see us through. But yet, a perplexity exists: When is it time to again be happy?
Wounds can't be ignored. Even a broken bone needs time to recover. When trust has been jeopardized, how does one move forward with another still? I think repentance is necessary in these cases for the one who has committed the offense. For repentance lets an individual know that you have changed. Repentance makes it know to the individual being repented to that you had an error in an area and that from there, in that area, that person is going to be new. But without repentance, how dies one injured know that you have a changed heart? Without repentance, the one injured will not know to let down the guards of their heart towards you. Therefore, it's written, "If one trespass against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them." The forgiveness encompasses the forgetting also of what one has done to you because the person repenting is saying that they are new. But, we must always have love within our hearts where we forgive even before an apology. Thus, if one never apologizes to you, you will yet be free.
So then, when is it time to be happy again? Wounds desire time to be resolved. Even the greatest love of all took three days and nights before returning whole. Even when we understand all, knowing that not all of us knows what we are doing, some decisions crush us: and so, the time to be happy is when the Lord God meets us to make us free from all that we have endured.
Do you know him?
- EB.