T.D. Jakes - Let it Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven

I dedicate this book to all of the men and women who carry around burdens of unforgiveness for the many trials, transgressions, and trespasses in their lives. I pray that you may find strength, comfort, and hope within these pages, and, through the power of forgiveness, be released from the crushing weight on your shoulders.

I m always amazed at family reunions at the people who say, Why, you havent changed a bit! Its usually said by a great-aunt sipping iced tea on the front porch or a cousin who blindsides you near the chips and dip, or some distant relative from your grandfathers side of the family whom you havent seen since you had pimples and braces. It used to annoy me, as if they couldnt see how much Id grown, matured, developed, and changed.

As if they couldnt tell how much better I had becomemore successful, more influential, more important. Not to mention more humble! Im no longer that stocky little boy sitting thoughtfully on grandmas rocking chair, listening to the adults reminisce about the good old days and gossip about what cousin Lucy is wearing. Im a grown man who leads an international ministry and travels around the world and writes books and makes movies.

It seems so clear to those relatives, as if they can see the consistent pieces within both the boy and the man. Yet when I think about who I was as a child, my memories of boyhood incidents do not always seem to reflect the man I became. Certainly, there are a few events that reflect my adult self when I view them through this lens. I remember finding a litter of nine puppies while on the way home from my paper route when I was probably nine or ten years old. Their mothers lifeless body lay in a ditch, a casualty of a speeding car along that busy highway.

The cries of the newborn pups from the nearby bushes alerted me to their defenseless state and insistent hunger. It didnt even occur to me to leave them lying there, whimpering for the mother who would never return to nurse them. Taking them home nestled in my empty newspaper carrier, I placed an old towel in the bottom of a cardboard box for them and then proceeded to come up with a plan to alleviate their hunger.

I emptied a Palmolive dishwashing liquid bottle and filled it with warm milk mixed with a little oatmeal (I have no idea why I added thismaybe it was the closest ingredient at hand that reminded me of baby food!). Using the squeeze dispenser cap, I nursed each puppy and managed to keep them alive this way for several days until they could be placed with new owners in loving homes.

I must tell you, though, that I wished I had saved that liquid soap that I poured out in order to use the squeeze bottle. I could have used it to clean the enormous mess made by those puppies the next morning. Because something I learned about feeding puppies with milk and oatmeal is that it produces diarrhea! Talk about unbearable! I thought my mother was going to drop me in a ditch somewhere when she saw the huge mess my new responsibilities had madeon the porch, in the garage, and all over our yard.

What does this incident have to do with the man I have become? you might ask. While Im certainly not a veterinarian or dog trainer now, theres something about the plight of these orphaned pups that pulled at my heartstrings so powerfully that I could not resist helping them, nurturing them, and finding a way for them not only to survive but thrive. I didnt help them out of a sense of moral obligation or a guilt-triggered feeling of having to do the right thing. No, I was clearly supposed to find them and perform the joyful privilege of offering what I had to give.

Reflecting on this memory as a microcosm of what I do in my life now, I am still drawn by the challenge of caring for the underdogs, those people who are at the end of their rope and at the bottom of the barrel, individuals who may appear to have everything but are emotionally orphaned inside, secretly feeling just as helpless as those puppies. People whom others have given up on and who may want to give up on themselves. Im not Superman and certainly do not have a Messiah complex, as the clinicians label people who must save others in order to feel good about themselves. I simply have an awareness of my purpose that dates back to a time when caring for a litter of helpless puppies was as natural to me as breathing.

Over the past thirty-five years, Ive spent my life interacting with an amazing diversity of people around the world. Ive been privileged to pray with tribesmen in the African bush, address children in New Zealand, and sing gospel hymns with women in prison. Ive continually been blessed by these encounters and received more than I think I gave them, learning to appreciate that we are all more alike than different, more full of light than darkness, more full of love than violence.

However, we dont always see ourselves the way others are able to see into us, whether they be relatives or not. I believe we often fail to make the connections between where we started on our journey and the place where we currently find ourselves. My hope is that this book will help you gain insight into what prevents you from being the husband you want to be, the wife you long to be, the mother or father you know is inside you, the creative person you were born to bethe most successful version of you possible! The following pages will change your life if you take my message to heart. And it wont be easy! Im not suggesting methods for trimming the hedges of your behavior but for getting to the bitter roots of the issues that consistently strangle your potential. But it will be more than worth the effort to free yourself from a burden thats been crippling you for far too long.

Psychologists, doctors, and researchers tell us that our personalities are clearly formed and defined even as toddlers. Studies indicate that by the time were in third grade, most of our inner motivations, coping skills, and personal preferences have been established. Before we even get close to the teenaged years, we have become most of who we are to become.

In most cases, we develop a defensive strategy in our formative years that we will wear like a mask through the rest of our life. We begin repeating this cycle of responding to experiences in certain ways and then have it reinforced by the traumas of lifedeath, divorce, betrayal, loss, renewal. No doubt, our personalities incline us toward relating to the world in particular ways. Very quickly we learn what works and what doesnt work, how to get attention and how to avoid it, when to speak up and when to remain silent. Simply put, we encounter life and learn that it does not indeed revolve around us.

We are forced to learn to accommodate life on its own terms. We may be blessed with loving parents in an affluent household, but we must still face getting cut from the team, making the bad grade, being rejected by the cute girl at the dance. Or we may have grown up in an impoverished, abusive home and worked hard for good grades for a scholarship out of our circumstances. In either case, we became conditioned to expect life to work a certain way as well as conditioned to interact with those around us in particular ways.