Breathing in the Forgiveness Blend

What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?

Forgiveness has become a disciplined reflex—a practice of breathing in, letting go, and beginning again.

Every year has its stories. The hardest, though, were the years of childhood.

Back then, I had no words for how I felt. I was deeply burdened by what I was taught.

Week after week, year after year, stories of sin, hell, and eternal damnation weighed heavily on me.

I learned that playing with the neighboring children outside our church meant I was playing with fire. We were what the church called “unequally yoked.” I was taught to feel responsible for saving them from hell’s fiery future.

Memorizing and singing Bible verses became another part of the structure that surrounded us. It was often a war inside a song.

Stories of people fighting over which version of God was right never truly made sense. Regardless, the wars outside and within went on and on.

I hid from all those wars in a tiny closet, away from my parents and siblings, my nose buried in a book. That child couldn’t imagine the woman she’d become—a peace-filled, tree-hugging hippie Reverend and artist.

Some days I’m still that quiet 45-year-old kid. These daily prompts have become a way of stepping out of that closet.

My mind is almost always in an emotional yoga pose. No one seems to notice I’m in a laughing prayer pose.

Anger asks us to hold our breath. Forgiveness teaches us to exhale.

To laugh.

To cry.

Now I’m a laughing yogi. I cry happy and sad tears of release until those chapters begin to soften into a wiser kind of smile. Oy, the wrinkles are arriving already.

These days, I feel full—of books, laughter, and quiet wonder. I highlight and memorize the lines that give me frisson.

Words about forgiveness keep rising to the surface. Since then, I’ve found forgiveness at the heart of nearly every tradition I’ve studied.

They’ve become so woven into me that I even diffuse “Forgive” essential oil—a fragrant reminder to keep breathing, letting go, and beginning again.

Every exhale is a quiet reminder that the hardest years no longer get the final word.