Article July 23, 2018 Issue

Drop resentment—and be ready for progress

Erin O’Kelly Bourcier

Why is it that sometimes we find ourselves remembering and holding onto bad experiences from the past, finding it hard to let go and move on? I’ve often heard people telling of bad experiences they’d had that happened long ago, experiences in which the emotional pain, resentment, and anger regarding something they thought was unfair were very hard to get over. This has made me wonder why it is that we sometimes feel helpless to move forward and get past certain situations.

For some time I had been praying about some unfair and unkind situations in my life. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. Our prayers revealed to me that I needed to get a handle on all-consuming resentment—ugly thoughts that were eating me up. Without even being aware of it, I had allowed myself to become consumed with angry and upsetting thoughts. I realized I had to discard those thoughts and really forgive individuals I felt had treated me unfairly.

I learned through my prayers that, while it can seem difficult to let go of resentment, there really is a way to truly forgive and move on. I found that we do this by turning and listening to God in humble prayer and by recognizing the spiritual truth that God knows us as His children, His image and likeness. He made us all good and only good. We are in reality the reflection of what God knows about Himself; we are the complete, perfect, joyous, harmonious, and loving spiritual reflection of Him. To the degree that we identify with this truth, we are freed from dwelling on the past because we are identifying instead with the truth of our eternal nature; in other words, we are letting God govern our thinking.

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