beginning a new Life

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One day a seven-year-old boy was riding in the back seat of the family car. He was sitting between his older brother and sister. Their mother was driving. On this day their mother was feeling especially distraught over having been recently abandoned by their father. Suddenly, in a fit of anger, she spun around and slapped the seven-year-old across the face. She yelled at the boy: "And you! I never wanted you. The only reason I had you was to keep your father. But then he left anyway. I hate you!" That scene branded itself on the boy's memory. Over the years, his mother reinforced her feelings toward him by constantly finding fault with him. Years later that son was able to tell his counselor. "I can't tell you how many times in the last twenty-three years I relived that experience. Probably thousands." He continued, "But recently I put myself in my mother's shoes. Here she was, a high school graduate with no skills, no job, no money and a family to support. I realized how lonely and depressed she must have felt. "I thought of the anger and the pain that must have been there. And I thought of how much I reminded her of the failure of her young hopes. And so one day I decided to visit her and talk to her. I told her that I understood her feelings and that I loved her just the same. "She broke down and we wept in each other's arms for what seemed to be hours. It was the beginning of a new life for me, for her, --- for both of us." "Don't look back on yesterday That's full of hurts and regrets, Look ahead and seek God's way, And learn to forgive and forget." *By Doris and Donnelly From "Forgiveness Brings New Life