--Sometimes It's Not Easy to Forget the Past~~

-"Cease from anger, and forsake wrath."
---(Psalm 37:8/ KJV)-

--"Can I open it?" my daughter asked. She was holding up a large cardboard box, red with yellow flowers, that she had found in the storage locker we were clearing out. I shook my head. "Oh please, Mom. I want to see what it's like."

In the box, unopened for thirty-seven years, was my wedding dress. My mother had made the dress, far away in the English village where I was born. It was beautiful--white silk-trimmed with lace and a long veil. She could sew better than anyone I've ever known. But my mother was not at my wedding to see me walk down the aisle in the dress she had made.

My parents had disapproved of my husband-to-be without even meeting him. He was American, of a different religious denomination, and worst of all, he was of German heritage. My parents had lived through two horrible world wars.

Finally, I said, "Okay, sweetheart. Open it if you like."

There it lay slightly yellowed, but otherwise just as it had been all those years ago. I touched the skirt. The silk was smooth and gentle. As I looked down at my fingers, I realized that even after my husband was accepted and the family happy again, I had never stopped being hurt and angry that my parents weren't there on the day that changed the rest of my life.

As my daughter held up the dress, saying, "Oh, Mom, it's beautiful!" I looked my hurt and anger in the eye and let it go forever.

~"Lord, let me remember that forgiveness is a divine gift to the forgiver as well as to the forgiven. Thank You, Jesus, for dying on the Cross to forgive me of my sins. Help me to do the same to others who may hurt me, as 'they know not what they do.' "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) ~~

--Guideposts~~BW--"You Make Me Brave" (lyrics)//Amanda Bank =<https://youtu.be/2YE3l0tEh3c>
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