MOPS | The Choice To Forgive

Good morning loves! Is anyone else crazy excited that January is FINALLY over?! Oh my gee…Y’all that month was so long!  Anywho, welcome to another moment with Shona.

Today, I will be talking about my faaaaaavorite  group that I’m a part of called MOPS. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s simply moms of Preschoolers. I have the honor of leading this group of amazing ladies every second and fourth Tuesday of each month. If you are in the Virginia area and you’re a mom of a preschooler, come visit us sometime! Our address is:

The House of Prayer

10500 Newby’s Bridge Rd.

Chesterfield, VA 23832

You can also go to http://mops.org/groups/hopcentral to sign up. We meet at 7pm-8:30pm and we do provide childcare also! Ok, now that I put that plug in, time to get to the meat of this post! Lol!

January 23rd, my MOPS group met and I had a special guest share her heart. Her name is Emily and she is actually one of the MOPS members. I asked her to share something very personal with our group which tied into our topic of having the choice to forgive. Emily agreed to share with the ladies that evening. Talking about forgiveness can be a very heavy topic, so since I wanted the group to be fun, Emily agreed to bring her makeup and wonderful detoxifying mask! What others didn’t know was, there was a POWERFUL testimony behind why Emily pursued this specific business. I knew a small portion of her testimony, but when she share it in it’s entirety, I was blown away at her strength!

We watched a video that went along with our session and I stopped it midway through to share my testimony of walking in forgiveness. What I shared was something that happened to a member of my family who was VERY dear to my heart. I shared the hurt and the pain that my family went through and how I learned how to forgive quickly. It takes a lot to actually say “I forgive you” to someone who did something so wrong that you can barely get their name out of your mouth without your heart pounding. No one said it would be easy to forgive. But, the key part is, you MUST always walk in forgiveness because if you don’t, the person who did you wrong keeps that power. They are carefree, but you on the other hand are on the struggle boat. You are trying to sail across the sea of life, but you clearly have the wrong equipment in your boat. What you need is the paddle of peace, the strength of the wind, and calm waters. But what you are carrying are things that weigh you down. You’re trying to move forward towards land, but you have rocks in your boat. You have heavy rainfall hitting your face, so you can’t see which way to go. And you have an angry sea of water that sways you to and fro. And guess what you’re using for your paddle… your HANDS! How do you expect to make it towards land? Drop the baggage, no more holding grudges and learn to walk in forgiveness so you can be free! And it’s important to forgive so God can forgive you when you do something wrong.

So…I really wasn’t planning on going that route, but I feel like someone needed to hear that. Hey, I was just listening to my heart. So, I just want to encourage those who feel heavy in their heart. Those who know they seriously need to forgive someone, but for some reason can’t. Let me be the first to tell you, YOU CAN! If you only knew what Emily went through and what I went through to be able to stand up tall and be bold and say, hey, I forgive you. Such a sweet feeling of peace happens the moment you say those words. Even if the person continues to hurt you in the future, you continue to forgive no matter what!

Wrapping this post up, before Emily and I shared our forgiveness stories, Emily introduced us to a wonderful detoxifying mask. Boy did we have fun applying this! We laughed so hard lol! This is what MOPS is all about. It’s about enjoying other mothers company and creating a sisterhood where we can come together in a safe place and talk about life! I love my sisters! We had a very small group this time around, but we still had a great time.

Oh, and please believe I was still eating the right foods while I was at my group. If you have been following my posts, you know that I am doing timed-nutation for 80 days. So I packed my food with me!

Until next time, “laugh hard, love harder, capture each moment & sprinkle a little joy in someone else’s life.”- XO Shona