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 very little control over my time and few believed words for how I felt.

I was deeply burdened by what I was taught religiously.

Week after week, year after year, there were the sermons about perfection, sin, hell, heaven, and eternal damnation. All those stories 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 their souls from a future hell.

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

Debates over which version of God and the absolute never truly made sense.

I hid from wars inside a linen closet, nose buried in a fictional story. That child couldn’t imagine the woman she’d become—a peace-filled, tree-hugging Reverend and artist.

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

My mind is often in a yoga pose. No one seems to notice I’m standing in a laughing pose.

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

To laugh.

To cry.

I still cry happy and sad tears of release until life’s chapters begin to soften into a wiser kind of smile. Oy, the wrinkles are arriving already.

Some 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.