Why Forgiveness?
I remember staying with a relative and sleeping on the couch with my 2-year-old, at the time. I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong to have someone leave the responsibility of a child on me completely and I lost everything around me. I only had two suitcases packed and I was still wearing maternity clothes. I remember getting rid of things in case me and my daughter had to sleep in the car. I remember getting a phone call from a transitional home saying that they had a room for me to stay in. That night I made a decision to forgive myself. I knew that I didn’t get here all by myself. Yes, I, too, had a role in it. This was the beginning of learning about forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a decision. I learned this while living in a transitional home when my daughter was 3 years old. This was the time where I felt at my lowest. I was heartbroken that I was raising my daughter on my own. I had lost everything while the other parent seemed to have just moved on with life.
As you pray let peace take over your mind. Peace and the single mom can help when you are stressed and need relief. HERE.
Broken Dreams
My reality had crushed my fantasy and I had to grieve what I thought my life should have looked like when I had a child. I felt I should have been married and enjoying the journey of motherhood with my spouse. That wasn’t my reality no matter how hard I tried to force it to be. So, I had to accept where I was so that I could start moving forward.
I remember the times I was crying, frustrated, fearful of the unknown, and feeling the weight of it all. I learned about forgiveness in my time with God and opened up in my counseling sessions. I learned that forgiveness was for me more than the other person. I didn’t want to be in bondage. I understood that this bondage would stop me from doing what God called me to do.
Free Gift
When I was able to gift myself with forgiveness, I then learned how to give it to others. I thought about all the times God had forgiven me when I strayed from him. The times I heard his voice and ignored it. I also think about the times that I have wronged someone and the times I have made mistakes. Although we still have to be accountable for the things we do and accept the consequences that come from it. It doesn’t mean that people can’t be forgiving.
Unforgiveness keeps us in bondage and it cuts off our spiritual senses and weighs on us physically. The great thing about it is you don’t have to do it on your own. It is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. However, we can continue learning about it through the eyes of God. The crazy thing about forgiveness is it doesn’t just start with the last thing or what someone has done to you. You find yourself forgiving things that were done to you since you were a child.
Breaking the Chains
Once God teaches you about the beauty of forgiveness, you get to share it with your children, family, friends, and anyone that we encounter who may have a need to receive the gift of forgiveness.
Audrey Renee is a blogger, national motivational speaker, consultant, and momfluencer. She also offers one-on-one coaching to inspire single moms. Audrey is the owner of DearSingleMommy, LLC, an organization birthed by her desire to turn her pain into purpose. She has the heart to see every woman work toward finding forgiveness, healing, and walking in their true freedom.
Audrey takes her own testimony of walking away from a failed engagement, facing homelessness, and almost sleeping in her car with her daughter, and turns it into a story to inspire women across the world.
Remembering the sisterhood she found while living in a transitional home, Audrey was inspired to start a single mom’s life group that has turned into a community of women healing and going after what God has for them. She believes that when women focus on self-care, they will develop a group of amazing mothers as well. For more information on Audrey, make sure to check out her website at dearsinglemommy.com.
The Life of a Single Mom is a national, faith-based, nonprofit that exists to see that no single mom walks alone. To date, the organization has worked with hundreds of churches to start a single mom’s support group in cities throughout the U.S. and beyond, as well as having served hundreds of thousands of single mothers with a variety of programs. Offering a large array of books, curriculum, training materials, online instructional videos, podcasts, newsletters, life skills education, and more, TLSM is one of the largest single mom organizations in the U.S. The robust selection of single mom programs focus on empowering single moms to grow spiritually, emotionally, financially, and parentally through Single Mom University, Single Moms Across America, the National TLSM Single Moms Conference, boot camps, and a variety of other programs. For more information, visit www.thelifeofasinglemom.com.
