more on forgiveing self

I found something last night that really helped me to clarify my own thoughts and I'd like to share it. I can't contribute the words to an author, because it was sentences/thoughts from several different people...right or wrong, I copied what spoke to me for re-reading.
What I found was this:

**I think self forgiveness is just poor language used to express deep guilt or regret. The solution is always the cross - take the focus off of self - let Him reign.


The only way to being set free of the guilt was receiving - really knowing and experiencing - God's forgiveness and love. "Forgiving myself" sounds so inviting and plausible upon first inspection - but it's both impossible, and not required.

The issue is not our involvement in the process - we clearly are (e.g. Hebrews 12:1) - but our definition of "forgiveness". We need His forgiveness, not our own. But for our part we do need to truly accept it in order to receive it. I don't think that process is "self-forgiveness". I think that process is coming into true belief that God has forgiven us (which will take some time, prayer, patience, help from others, and genuine encounter with the person of God).**

A lot of what I have read has pointed out that when we believe in forgiving self, we place ourselves above God, as God is the only one who can forgive us. Still, we are commanded to forgive others, so why is it so far out there to consider forgiving our own selves?

So many people have experienced such trauma, been raised in such sinful homes, abused, neglected, controlled, manipulated, lied to, berated and such--that they grow up with some deep seated issues and some truly twisted thinking. Even though my homelife wasn't the worst, it wasn't what it should have been. I know I am one who grew up with some 'issues' that I had to recognize the source, work through them, accept that, even after becoming a Christian, I often acted based upon my upbringing. I had to rely on asking God for knowledge of His will and the strength to carry that out. He did.



But for me, it truly involved recognizing that == for example==my extreme anger stemmed from parental neglect from my mom and abuse from my father. I had to reach a point of releasing that anger. I know, I really know that God led me in that release, God gave me the steps to take, God took the anger, the pain, the hunger for love--for it was after the steps I took to let go of that anger that I began to grow in the Lord and my attitude improved.



Yet, I still felt guilt over the ways I had yelled at my children, the anger I had displayed toward them. I still felt like an unworthy person, a horrid mother, and worse yet, wondered how could a Christian act the way I had acted prior to my 'cleansing', as I like to call it.



As time went on, I had encountered the phrase, forgive self, and it made sense to me--in the sense that I had to accept that I did what I did because of inner pain; an inner pain that honestly, after salvation, I expected God to remove. He did, but only after I became willing to take the steps to help myself. But I truly expected following salvation, for all my character defects to go 'poof' into the wind. *hahahaha*



It hasn't happened. It has been a process, the working out of my salvation, as it were, the learning Bible doctrine, applying it to my life, living it, learning to trust God for everything. Maybe I initally chose to call my trusting that God has forgiven me of my wrongs, forgiving self. Maybe I was and am wrong in even considering that phrase. However, I knew and know in my heart who my Savior is. I know whom I believe and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.



I also know that in my own life, my forgiving self had nothing to do with my exalting myself above God. It simply meant that I accepted that I had done wrong in my life, I had accepted Christ as my Savior, confessed my sins, and continue to do so, and I trust that he forgives them.