When someone has hurt you its not easy to forgive them. Unforgiveness is probably the biggest reason people get stuck in their past and their past becomes their future.

For you not to get stuck in the past in which you have been hurt by people you you have to know that hurting people hurt people.

What do I mean by hurting people hurt people?

People who have been hurt and are in emotional pain hurt other people. People who have been abused, abandoned, emotionally wounded, often express their anger and pain in unhealthy ways that hurt other people. They may abuse, abandon, criticize, judge, and betray you just as others did to them. They may self-medicate with substances that distort their judgment and cause them to use you for their own ends.

Taking their pain out on you is not fair. But you have a choice as to how you will respond to hurting people and the pain they inflict on you. You can choose to be bitter or you can choose to forgive and be free.

When you harbor bitterness toward people who have hurt you you freeze-frame your life at the moment the pain was inflicted, You become stuck in the past. When you forgive you the people who hurt you, you set yourself and them free to heal, free to move into the future and leave the past behind.

I know of no better story about responding to hurt than the story of “The Sack.”

Once upon a time in a little village, in a beautiful green valley, set between two purple mountains, there lived a poor woman named Judy. Each morning, when the sun rose over the mountains, Judy would leave her little hut and go about her daily chores. She fed the chickens and picked the eggs, milked the cows, and tended the garden. But there was something strange about Judy. For wherever Judy went she always carried a large sack slung over her shoulders.

You see, one day, when she was young, some boys of the village made fun of her by calling her names. “Fatty, fatty two-by-four! Can’t fit through the bathroom door!” When she called them names back, “Moe, Larry Curly, you look like a girly,” they did her one better by throwing stones at her. Since the boys were far to fast for her to catch and far too big for her to fight, she instead picked up all the stones they had thrown and put them into a sack she was carrying. When she got home, she carefully marked the name of each boy on each stone they had thrown.

As the days followed and the name calling continued, Judy carefully collected each stone and marked them with the person’s name that had thrown it. Unfortunately, Judy lived in a time and in a place where everyone was given to throwing stones. Each time a stone was hurled, whether by a child or an adult, Judy found it and named it. Slowly her collections of stones began to grow.

Because the people of the valley knew what she was doing, Judy worried that they might sneak into her hut while she was away and scatter her stones. So each day she carried her sack, and each night she named and sorted her stones. Her daily load got heavier and heavier.

One day the king came to the village to pick a new judge over the people. He picked Judy. She was to be the judge in all matters concerning the king and the kingdom. Dressed in her judicial robes, Judy sat in judgment over all the people of the valley.

After a while, one by one, the people of the valley all came before Judy for judgment over one thing or another. After the charge was read, Judy reached into her sack and pulled out all the stones with the offender‚s name on them. “Five stones in the sack—five years in prison. Eight stones in the sack—eight years in prison. A year in prison for every stone in my sack with your name on it.” There were 490 stones in all.

Strangely, however, as the sack got emptier, it never got lighter. In time there were no more stones in the sack, nor people in the valley. There were no more bakers to bake bread or farmers to grow food. No cobbler to fix shoes or tailor to sew clothes. There was no one to talk or eat with. And there was no one for the king to collect taxes from.

Judy had given out justice. It made her feel good but she was not happy. She was alone and lonely. One morning as she sat at her window watching the sun rise over the mountains, Judy decided she must do something before it was too late. She dressed in her judge‚s robes and went to the village square. There she ordered that all the prisoners were to be set free. The occasion was celebrated with a great feast in the village square. There was eating and drinking and joy among the people. Judy walked freely among them, giving greetings and wishing them well.

Suddenly, a man who was still angry with Judy, shouted a curse at her and followed it with a stone. A hush fell over the crowd. Judy reached down and picked up the stone. Once again, as she had done so many times in the past, she carefully wrote the man’s name on it and put it into his sack. Turning slowly, she looked into the eyes of all the villagers. Then she lifted the sack as if to sling it over her shoulder. Instead, she began to swing it around and around and around over her head. Finally, she hurled it off into the distance. The crowd cheered and shouted.

From that day on, Judy never carried her sack again. From that day on, there was never any need for her to.

Is it time to let go of your “sack?” Is it time to forgive the hurting people who have hurt you? Is it time to forgive yourself for the hurt you have caused others so you can be free?

Hurting people hurt people, forgive and be free! If you do your past will not become your future.

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Next time: Your past is not your future when yuo admit that ause leaves scars and you get help to heal.