Forgive? How can I possibly forgive? A review

Forgiveness has been something that I've struggled with in the past. So I was excited to read How Can I Possibly Forgive? A new book by Sara Horn. She starts out with a story about how she had been avoiding having a conversation with someone who she was having a strained relationship with and there seemed to be issues, but when she finally talked with her, the other person said, nope nothing's wrong, yet everything had been telling Sara there was. How many times had that be me? Avoiding answering a call or going some where because I didn't want to deal with emotions/situations.

The chapter that really hit me is Chapter 3 "In Seasons of Rumble". On Page 59, Sara writes,

"Bitterness does that to you. When life happens and circumstances feel unfair, when you sense yourself in the crosshairs of an undeserved target, or maybe just as an innocent bystander not looking for trouble or for problems, you can quickly move from sadness to resentment, from denial to anger. You might get mad at other people, putting blame squarely on their shoulders, or you might even get mad at God.

The thing about bitterness, though, is it's not easy to hide. Eventually, you expose yourself. Your sour feelings come out."

How many of us can relate to that? I know that I've been feeling that way dealing with the stress of this separation and everything that seems going wrong in my life. But if we can learn to deal with what is going on, it will make it somewhat easier to get through the "Big Hurts" as Sara calls them.  Sara writes on Page 60, 

"How easily we can be changed by our circumstances and challenges, by the Big Hurts we come up against."

 But if we can learn to let go of the bitterness, or whatever it is, we can hopefully get to a place of forgiveness. God wants us to have that.

At the end of each of the 10 chapters in the book, there are five ways/reasons/truths to go along with the topic of each chapter, which range from ideas such as: "Getting Over It" and Other Myths; Forgiving Yourself; When You're Mad at God; and Listening Through the Noise. Sara puts a lot of heart into her writing and use such real experiences from her own life to help readers deal with the hurts, the scars, the noise and anything else that cause us pain so that we can learn to forgive others and most importantly ourselves.

Sara's book, "How Can I Possibly Forgive? Rescuing Your Heart from Resentment and Regret comes out October 1 and can be found at Amazon and other places as well.

I was given a copy of the book as a member of the Launch team. The review and comments are my own