Bury the Hatchet

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32) 
 
One of the most powerful concepts of forgiveness I’ve ever heard comes from Native American culture. After wars and battles between native tribes, or between native tribes and the whites who tried to conquer them, they would participate in a ceremony involving burying the weapons that were used to keep the hostilities going. They would take the machetes, the guns, the bow and arrows, and they would bury them in the ground. They called it burying the hatchet.  
 
The first recorded mention of the practice occurred in 1680 when the Mohawks came to an agreement with the English and signed a treaty to bring about peace. Burying the hatchet was the prelude to bringing about peace.  
 
Some of us need to follow the example of the Mohawk tribe. We are not experiencing peace because we have not buried the hatchet. When we carry unforgiveness, we say that the past is more important than the future. We say that the prison of the old trauma is more comfortable than the new possibilities we can access by letting things go. We say that the pain is more important than the growth, the lessons, or the healing it comes to bring us.  
 
The truth of the matter is that there’s some pain we had to experience in order to experience the lessons that came as a result. 
 
In light of that, are you going to let someone who hurt you deny you of the peace and the growth you could be experiencing because you refuse to forgive them? When you try to make someone else suffer, you end up being the one to suffer. When you carry a grudge, it’s your back that gets sore, not the other person’s. Forgiveness is the way to bring freedom to your life and remove the burden you’ve been carrying around. It’s time to bury the hatchet.