The Burden of Unforgiveness: Thriving over the Broken Unrelenting Chains of Pains and Disappointments Through Forgiveness

By Almond Ronald Muvhango Rasimphi

Forgivenes: is to stop feeling angry and resentful towards someone who offended you as a result of perceiving offense, difference, or mistake or an offense or flaw. It is a process of concluding resentment, indignation or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. Henceforth - the breaking the unrelenting chains of pain that held us back from good progress and advancement.

All humans are victims of self and each others grudge bearing, revenge seeking and continued hatred at times. But we must know and understand that there isnt any solution, neither could grudge bearing, revenge seeking and continued hatred brings peace to self or to all humanity. We need to believe in finding a way to forgive one-self and others. All victims of unforgiveness and negativity must believe that; there is a way to be good again and to encourage one-self and others escape unforgiveness and negativity onslaught and redeem one-self and help others to be redeemed. We must keep peeking into that deserted alley and look forward to forgiveness and reconciliation, as well as, to always remember and know that there was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, lived and worked together or shared some good experience and a kinship that even time could not break. We can lift our spirit from the certainty of turmoil and drop ourselves into the ocean of peace of mind. Because when spring comes it causes melting of the snow flake at a time, and maybe we will witness first hand the unforgiveness and negativity snowflake melting to the grand match of regain our peace of mind and smiles back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Aug 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477121221

Almond Ronald Muvhango Rasimphi

I dedicate this book to the whole family of Rasimphi, Nevhutalu, Malazwandila, and Nemutudi of Vhanyai-vha-ha-mmbwa-lambana. You trained me to be what I am today. I also dedicate this book to the most important person in life - my wife, Thelma Thifhindulwi (Mulaudzi) Rasimphi. She has been a great source of help, a pillar and an anchor during the tough times. She stood by me in the darkest hours. I dont know how life would be if I wasnt married to this wonderful, loving woman. I love you with all my heart!

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Copyright © 2012 by Almond Ronald Muvhango Rasimphi.

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Contents

DEDICATION

PERSONAL CONFESSION TO INTENT

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 01: The Huddles Against Forgiveness

Chapter 02: THE LAW OF HOLINESS

Chapter 03: BUILDING BLOCK OF UNFORGIVENESS

Chapter 04: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

Chapter 05: INESCAPABLE AND ESCAPABLE SCARS

Chapter 06: STRONG FAITH IS REQUIREMENT

Chapter 07: BE IN CONTROL

Chapter 08: NOT SCARED OF BAD NEWS

Chapter 09: FORGINESS LEADS TEAM SALVATION

Chapter 10: CALLING THE TRUCE (Ending the War)

Chapter 11: TRUE VICTORY—SWEET VICTORY

Chapter 12: GOING HOME TO VICTORY

Chapter 13: THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES

Chapter14: LET IT BE LIFE OF CELEBRATION

Chapter 15: RUNNING AWAY OR COMING TO THE CALL

Chapter 16: Did you, remember

CONCLUSION

UNFORGIVENESS versus FORGIVENESS

Almond Ronald Muvhango Rasimphi

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the whole family of Rasimphi, Nevhutalu, Malazwandila, and Nemutudi of Vhanyai-vha-ha-mmbwa-lambana. You trained me to be what I am today.

I also dedicate this book to the most important person in life - my wife, Thelma Thifhindulwi (Mulaudzi) Rasimphi. She has been a great source of help, a pillar and an anchor during the tough times. She stood by me in the darkest hours. I don’t know how life would be if I wasn’t married to this wonderful, loving woman. I love you with all my heart!Preface

Life is an adventure by its nature. Now, would you (the Reader) take that Walk of Life with me—as I take the pain to explain my underlying reasons of writing this book? I have written this book with one purpose in mind; to try and uncover the dangers of unforgiveness and what the long hold on unforgiveness can do to the host. If we do not forgive those who hurt us at will and out of ignorance, we are not at any advantage and we gain nothing. I plead with you to take this journey towards forgiveness and reconciliation much in favour of yourself and in favour of those who are tired of the grudge bearing, revenge seeking and hatred exhibition standoff and also much against the expectations of those who see no reason for forgiveness and reconciliation. If your answer is yes to this Holy Calling please note that you are not alone. Although, you and I may never meet in flesh, I am with you all the way.

Take this book as your personal guide - as you and I will help guide each other. As you sit down and read; at your palace, in your car or reading as you walk like I do. Every time you give yourself sometime to read this book, it will be like you are listening to me in person sharing my heart to you. This is our journey in pursuit of forgiveness. Read this book with open mindedness and an open heart. And let me thank you in advance for listening to my heart, help it heal by listening in your spirit and mind. I am a better person now because of you and I will even be far better, when we have completed the journey together to the desired end and in the end have taken a reasonable decision to overcome unforgiveness. May, God be with you throughout your remaining years of life.

PERSONAL CONFESSION TO INTENT

One can always choose to share personal experiences with intention to advice, help and teach others to do the right and become the best beyond their own experiences or to avoid the wrongs or pitfalls and to avoid becoming the worst.

TOGETHER WITH YOU IN THIS JOURNEY:

Now, let us take this Walk of Life or Journey together. As we try to identify or to explore the underlying reasons and intentions of writing this Book. We will therefeore do our best to uncover and explain the dangers of Unforgiveness, and what it leads too. Somewhere and somehow, we need to come to an understanding as to what happens to us; when we refuse to forgive those who offended us at will or by ignorance. I intend to plead with all of you my dear brothers and sisters, my fathers and mothers, colleagues and friends. I plead with you; to take this journey towards forgiveness and reconciliation together with those who are tired of grudge bearing, revenge seeking and hatred standoff. At least, if you are in need to answer the Holy Calling and know about this challenging Call—you are not alone, but we are in this journey and all the way to announciation of the death of Unforgiveness. Take this book is almost like personal guide to both us. As you sit down to read at your palace, in your car or reading as you walk, like I do. Every time you give yourself sometime to read—it will be like you are listening to me in person sharing my heart to you. And this is our journey together in pursuit of Forgiveness. The reading should lead to open-mindedness and rational-heartedness. And should be done with readiness to accept reality and practice what will be helpful to both the Culprit and the Victim of ignorance. You did it: Let me thank you in advance for listening to my heart—helping it heal by listening with both your spirit and mind. I am a better person now because of Forgiving. And will even be far better—when we have taken and completed this journey together to the desired end and to the point of taking a reasonable decision. May the Creator Being be with you throughout your remain years of life and service on purpose! The information provided in this book, reflects true Bible Recorded Accounts or Reports and the given examples relate much to my personal experience as true facts in many ways, without exaggerations and for sure nothing in this book is meant to hurt anyone or serve as a reminder of any painful past experiences. If I happened to touch or divulge certain very sensitive information about both my family and myself it is not something I could have just told it; I would have been compelled to divulge this information for the sake—all readers to understand that hurt can be forgiven and that one can choose to outgrow unforgiveness and negativity wrought about by past negative treatments and hurts. If it was not for the fact of trying to bring practical experience to the subject, I would not have chosen to speak about it. Whoever might have been mentioned here will have to choose to forgive me for saying so much about myself in conjuction with him/her—and this I did for the greater good of whole nation.

FOREWORD

My desire and passion in writing this book was and still is to speak someone out of the hurts and pains of the past—to encourage the victims of hurt to find life’s joy beyond their hurts and hurting as a result of being wronged or offended—to encourage the culprits or engineers of past hurts to overcome their shame and illtreated past. My intenion is more based and focused on trying to point out to my readers—my fellow brothers and sisters that life is a combination of experiences both good and bad, and that the choice of jabbering and keeping the past hurts, and the pains thereof is personal. Personal things are individually decided and you need no one to push you to do so; because you are the one that suffers when your life has grown sour and you are the one to enjoy when you are freed from the past hurts and past pains imprisonment, shame and disappointment, anger and bitterness. My prayer is that all those who happen to read or hear comments on this book may be inspired to learn to forgive and continue positive living, gain constructive passions beyond the disastrous past and end results of keeping hurts fresh and alive. We will always get hurt or hurt others and as long as—we are humans we will never be perfect. None of us humans are exempted or immunized from getting hurt or hurting others and it is for this reason that forgiveness was initiated and introduced by our Creator and Life Giver. The Real Image: We will not be humans if we do not get hurt or if we do not hurt others and we will not be the image of the Creator Being Himself; otherwise we will be something else or originated from somewhere else. Our Maker and Creator also do get hurt of our negative attitude and behavoiur, and so do we get hurt out of our own or from others’ negative attitudes and behaviours; and that is what makes us humans. Whereas hurts and the resulted pains draw our focus from the intended purpose of life; we need to struggle to keep our focus and avoid delays fighting the lost battle. Hurts and their pains discourage, destroy and hold back the dreams and visions of the victim-turned-host and this does not spare the ashamed and disappointed culprit. The past hurts and resulted pains confuse and frustrate both the victim-turned-host and the culprit in that all lose focus on the purpose of life and focus on disfavour dealings against each other—mean that the original Godly life purpose, personal goals and expectations get lost in the middle of payback fights. The idea and aim of this Book; is to help the victim-turned-hosts and the culprits to find courage to forgive and walk away from past hurts and the pains thereof; for the sake of accomplishing the purpose of life as given, for the discovering of reasons to life and to live, the realization one’s own dream, the idea of giving birth to one’s vision, the intended fact to the achieving of personal goals and the embracing one’s own expectations; such is highly impossible, as long as, one still keeps the past hurts and the pains thereof alive. Grudge bearing, the revenge taking and continuing to hatred against offenders and neither the continued ill practices against the offended by the offender for the reasons of covering for their shameful and disappointing acts of the past ever brought anything good in collective living and is never a constructive choice.

INTRODUCTION

This Book was written to try and advice Readers about the issues and matters pertaining to Unforgiveness, as well as, to try identifying the need to gain understanding that Forgiveness is not a cheap way to travel on. The Book points us out to realize that there are huddles to push over and about, before we realize the freedom and power of Forgiveness. One thing for sure is that our lives are faced with challenges that may lead us to grudge bearing, revenge seeking and continued hatred against our offenders. And surely, each one of us has passed and pushed against some of those huddles in lives. Its Message is aimed at trying to explain what the Law of Holiness that embraces forgiveness is all about. The LORD our God, our Creator, also gave a set of life principles to be followed and practiced. God did not just create life and leave it to itself; neither did He create us and leave us without life orders. The teachings thereof focus on the Creator given order of life to His images, even us. The idea of writing this Book came about as a result of much personal Self-Soul-Searching, the bearing of deep desire to find peace beyond hurt and hurting, beyond pointing fingers and blaming my lack of progress on our past. Thus, it identified things or events which are seen as The Building Blocks of Un-forgiveness. versus The Building Blocks towards Forgiveness. This ideal tool would be too dear to ignore, to important to underrate and to necessary to undermine. The sooner and better for one to come to terms with and take serious focus on The Building Blocks to Forgiveness, the sooner one come to realize the need for Personal Reflections in one’s life; and the sooner one will concetarte on making adjustments required to deal with life and its challenges.

I also intended to talk and instill some senses into the hearts of those who are unforgiving and negative about forgiving and to point out that; that which seems to be the In-escapable Scars of Unforgiveness are not necessarily so; if one chooses to address those Scars through the exercising and realization of Strong Faith as a Requirement. Life requires the host to have active and strong faith to survive, to shape and to direct. Life also commands or ushers one on Being in Control of oneself, the situations around one and the future one desires. Nature does not manage itself, but is managed by people; the same applies to our lives, to the prevailing situations around us and to the future we desire. We may not allow our lives to just spread everywhere, neither are we to surrender to the prevailing situations to control us and to steal our future from us. No! It can’t be that way. We must take charge of ours lives, things about us, and handle such with care and take advantage. This Book would not be complete without addressing the issue of developing a strong character; because people of strong character are Not Scared of Bad News. Bad News is inevitable and can’t disappear because we wished them away. No! We have to deal with Bad News correctly—with courage, self conviction and hope for the best and far beyond the receiving of Bad Reports. It is also intended to point out and teach that Forgiveness leads to Team Salvation. Forgiveness is the foundation and source of unity and oneness. This Book point us out to realize that we need to take heed of the Calling the truce beyond hurting, once we have been offended or wronged. While still on the issue of addressing the matters of Forgiveness and Unforgiveness; we also need to discover for ourselves, that it is possible to realize the True Victory, Sweet Victory while in this life and living amongst so vast a character of people. The Simple understanding required here is that Forgiveness and Unforgiveness are all war-methods and lifestyles we choose to adhere too. And where there are wars there are casualties and casuals, victories and loses. But and then, in case we seek after victories, we need to gain focus on the True and Sweet Victories versus Bitter Loses. In fact we may see no reason to speak of Bitter Loses; because the one called to forgive already knows by experience what bitter loses means, for having lived and survived such. Along the sidelines of life one need to come or grow to the reason of Going Home to Victory. We have the right to choose positive life over living the lost negative life and one chooses for oneself; whether one wants to live and stay on the sidelines of life or whether one want to get on to real living. When we have searched and discovered the real meaning of life, come to understand the need for living collectively, satisfied the desire for unity and oneness with others; then and only then, shall we understand what the statement going home to victory houses in it. Every time you arrive home from the day’s activities and challenges; it feels like you had won another day’s battle. At least that is how I feel now, after my many years of struggling with anger and bitterness as a result of refusing to forgive those who offended me back then. I am happy now that I have gone past the distant, closed the gap and came home to Forgiveness Victory. The Teachings in this Book will also remind us that There will be Consequences to whatever we do both intentionally and unintentionally. It tells us that we must be prepared to embrace the consequences of our doings and learn to choose well in matters, where we have the choice powers. If we learn to choose and be selective of what we do and how we do it; we will then, learn to embrace the consequences of our doings ungrudgingly. The Book addresses the desire to live a Life of Celebration and the essence of becoming a Celebrity. Unforgiving people cannot and have never been celebrated as heroes and heroines. What’s there to celebrate when one is always looking for ways and opportunities to bring down one’s past and present offenders and in the process ruin many people’s lives? Looking back over one’s shoulder; one can realize that it is dearly costing to pursue Unforgiveness and its intentions. Forgiveness is a calling that we need to answer to and we can choose to answer to. And this calling comes in one of the two ways; we are either Running Away from the Call which means denying the call and its responsibilities or we are Coming to the Call which means taking advantage and responsibility of the calling. And the last part of the Book deals with the question of remembrance, whether we Did Remember to or we didn’t even bother to STOP AND THINK about the destruction, damages and confusions that Unforgiveness brings about against the desired collective and peaceful living, team building and team work, as well as, complimentary and submissive to positive living.

Chapter 01:

The Huddles Against Forgiveness

Unforgiveness and Negativity are huddles we need to overcome in order to live a fulfilled life

Huddles are stumbling blocks that are intentionally placed on the runners’ path. And they get placed there for two purposes; to serve as deterrence to the weak runners but also to serve as strength and skill testers to the quality runners. Now if we take life as a race, we will then soon understand the meaning of the huddles that are set before or against us is part and parcel of the race as we run towards winning forgiveness as our goal. The presence of an unforgiving heart is solely related to refusal to let go the hurting memories and holding dearly to the pains of the past caused usually by unfair treatments. And, as long as, this reasons exist and are not overridden by our desire for reconciliation they become stumbling blocks on one’s efforts towards forgiveness. The hurting memories and pains, as well as, excuses or reasons remain intact and serve as reminders of the heart-crushing-painful-burdens; and usually stand in the way towards living normal life after having gone through much sufferings exposure and experiences. The living will always get hurt every now and then as long as they live with and amongst others. Hurts and pains are inevitable and come as a results of intentional or ignorance lifestyles of community or group members. But no matter what; the hurts are hurting and offenses offend. Both hurts and pains of the past have their own impact and effects on the victim-turned-host’s life and how the victim-turned-host associates with others. We are not able to control what our exposure to others may bring or cost us, but we are able to control ourselves and our thinking in very circumstance no matter what. Nevertheless the controlling of ourselves and our thinking are choices we decided to make, whether we are free or under pressure.

What are these Huddles against Forgiveness that we need to go over and across? I have already mentioned that huddles refer to our reasons of keeping the hurting memories and pains of the past as reminders of some intentional or ignorance lifestyle or incident that led to unfair hurts and pains by our offenders. These huddles can sound reasonable and justifiable at times; because the bearer of unforgiveness attitude has undergone and learned the hard way about life, they would have learned life through pain at firsthand, have been exposed and experienced the bad side of life, felt the pressure of hard living and have lived it every day and without a choice? The victim-turned-host of unforgiveness has undergone and felt the squeezing on every side and at times have realized their live’s spaces being forced to shrink on them. Depending on the kind of attitude you develop or adopt during the challenging years or at the time of being pushed and pulled by the powerful; you come to understand that the huddles that were placed in your path of life have worked in your favour than your disfavour and vice versa. The victims of hurt are compled to either breakdown or have breakthrough as a results of having lived through hard life experiences. The development or adoption of positive attitude like that of competent runner would work in your favour. And you will see huddles as projectors placed in your way to increase competitiveness, to challenge your then competence status, and to test the quality and strength that makes you a runner. Yet, the other side of huddles is that they stand in and against the way of the weak runners and serve as stumbling blocks and deterrence against the runner and the attainment his goals. And these huddles to the weak runner are seen as the reason and object of forced failure by the enemy; whereas the competent runners seen the huddles as competence bar raisers, runner’s quality and strength testers, as well as, competitiveness provers.

Let us then, look at some of the huddles we have to run pass over, understanding that whatever reason the huddles may mean or stand for in our life races; it is not and won’t always be simple and clear to us, but we must learn to appreciate the presence of life race huddles in our lives. We must know that huddles are by their nature not good and neither bad. The goodness and badness of the huddles depends solely on the victim’s attitude. Being positivity or negative towards a thing makes all the difference that set people apart from each other, speaks to what they achieve in life and what their life style would be like. It is important to choose and adopt the kind of attitude you will prefer to adhere too.

The Huddles at the runner’s race-path are part of the race and are placed to test the runner’s strength, competence, the quality of the runner and readiness or competitiveness, as well as, to help the runner to raise high his expectations. The same principles apply to the challenges posed against forgiveness. There are many causes of grudge bearing, revenge seeking and continued hatred. We need to see those causes as huddles on our forgiveness race-path from living a life of unforgiveness and defeat. The results of past unfair hurt and the birth of an unforgiving heart and negative attitude must be seen as huddles placed on the race tracks to test our strength, competency, endurance and faith quality. We have to see these huddles as placed to help us and not meant to destroy us. Huddles on race tracks are meant for the runner’s good and greater exploration of potential and not meant to test weakness in the runner. But and of course the weak in strength, the incompetent, poor quality and weakling in endurance cannot survive them. The willing and desirous about the future may fail in their first attempts—but they will keep trying and doing so with expectation that someday they will overcome. There is an English saying which says, Where there is a will there is a way and a factual statement that says, There is a silver lining around every dark cloud. Here are a few of the huddles we have to pass over in our race of life.

Some of the kind of huddles are supposed to deal with include;

1. The pain of not knowing what cause the other to be harsh and cruel to you and threats that comes as a result,

2. The contamination and poison that develops in your life and work very much against your own self

3. The pulling desire to escape to new life, which gets delayed because of the background and the reservation attitude that always stands on the way

4. Wrestling with the after marshes or effects because both the past and new lifestyle will always haunt you. The fact that one chooses at some time to change ways and attitude does not get rid of the past struggles and habits all of a sudden. It is a struggle of life and death—a struggle to realize what the enlightened life promises, as well as, a struggle to die from the past pain and misunderstanding. The after mashes always do surface now and then; and one has to ensure that they are cleaned out or they keep reminding one where one come from and the experiences thereof. It is a wrestling against the past and a wrestling to the new you—grabber of the new life and its promises.

5. The Sense of Victory: Victory is sensed and sensible. Its coming can be felt from a distant—even though one is currently immense by troubles. When Victory is about to arrive—one can feel it in the blood. It runs in every vain and hope rises in the midst of loss and despair. And one just can’t give up no matter what. You look back and say—not that way again and not now. There is hope in the future and life is promising—the way backs no more! And you have to make sure you capitalize in this sense to ensure that you do not miss its waves passing you by.

Chapter 02:

THE LAW OF HOLINESS

He who creates and gives life to something also gives it the principles to live and abide by

Life has its own orders and preferences. The Creator did not just create life and leave it to itself. The Creator gave His recommended life orders and preferences. Yet He also gave us the freewill to choose, and what we choose determine the kind of orders and preferences in life that we think fit or find reasonable to follow. Even in case of the Law of Holiness we may choose to respect and disrespect. One chooses the way and not the order—and the way gives its order to you. The order in the way is not chosen—but accepted at will or one gets compelled by circumstances on the way.

When God was giving orders concerning the holy lifestyle and living, and expecting the Israelite to follow the leading through Moses, He said, be holy, because I the LORD your God am holy. The main point of becoming a Child of God is to be like our Father, our Creator and our Lord through becoming—what He expected us to become. Amongst the many Laws of Holiness and Holy Living there is this Law;

Do not bear a grudge against any one, but settle your differences with him, so that you may not sin because of him. Do not take revenge on anyone or continue to hate him, love your neighbour as you love yourself. I am the LORD. (Lev 19: 17-18)

You see most of the Laws of Holiness started with the word Do not. The DO NOT word reveals to us that this was not a suggestion or request but that it is an instruction or command from a Personality with authority. The DO NOT word also means there is no room for flexibility or self reasoning, there is only one room and that room is and about doing; what one was expected to do with or without understanding. The Law of Holiness points out three undesirable tools of enemity to be destroyed in our lives and we will need to investigate from a close range, and the three tools of destruction are Grudge Bearing, Revenge Taking and Hatred. Let us try to look at them one from another

1. Grudge Bearing

The Word of God instructs us not to bear a grudge against anyone. These three words not against anyone further qualify the challenge of not bearing a grudges against anybody. Anyone refers to anybody regardless of what they did and are doing to us. The word Anyone as a noun refers to our relatives and strangers, colleagues and co-workers, friends and enemies. Whether those people are natural born enemies or friends turned enemies; we are commanded not to bear any grudge against them. Remember that it is also possible to bear a grudge against someone who did you no harm at all; all because of misunderstanding, misrepresentations, rumors, or it just happen that you don’t like that person without a tangible reason and it may happen that you can just hate or bear a grudge against that person because he/she reminds you of someone who hurt you badly.

The Definition of A grudge is; a