Capture Your Grief - Day 24 - Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a great topic.  It just happens to be today's Capture Your Grief prompt.  Goodness, where to start...

In the short time (a little over 6 months) since Faith went to Heaven, I have come to realize that I have had to forgive some people regarding her passing.  

I had to forgive my doctors for not checking things out earlier and not doing a procedure earlier that possibly could have saved her life had it been done earlier.

I've also had to forgive God for not stepping in and saving her so that she could be with me.  Some may say that is a crazy and bold thing to state, but guess what, it is the truth.  He knows it, and if I can't be honest with Him, who can I be honest with?  There are some people that say "He has a plan, it was His will, everything happens for a reason"...etc...let me clear one thing up here.  The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy, period.  It was NOT (& is not) God's will that my baby died.  However, I had (& still have sometimes) a difficult time with the fact that He didn't stop it.  So, I have to walk in forgiveness with my Heavenly Father. Strange to say and feel, but true, nonetheless.

Finally, I get to who I really and truly need(ed) to forgive...me.  I can't help but have an overwhelming sense of failure regarding my daughter's life.  My job was to protect her and I failed. That's one of the things I kept telling her the day she was born, that I was so sorry.  I still am, and don't know if I will ever feel differently.  While I know in my head that I didn't do anything or not do anything that caused her death, my heart just tells me that I should have been able to do something to save her.  I guess that is the way a mother is supposed to feel about her child.

Don't get me wrong, I do not sit and dwell on this all the time.  But it is something that lives inside me and may always.  I have gotten to the point that I forgive myself for...whatever...I have to so that I can do what I need to do in life.

One thing I know about unforgiveness is that if you hold it in your heart, it only hurts you, not the person you are holding it against.  So today, and every day, since the only person I can control (most of the time) is me, I choose to do my best to forgive...me...