They have things you are praying for right now.
The marriage.
The family.
The opportunity.
The business.
The income.
The career.
The answered prayer.
They have it.
And they still don’t recognize it.
They don’t appreciate it. They don’t value it. They don’t fully enjoy it.
I know that sounds crazy.
How can you have something you once prayed for and barely see it?
But one morning during my prayer time, I realized there are at least two things that can make that happen.
One is unforgiveness.
The other is comparison.
And then came the part I wasn’t expecting:
You’re one of those people.
I was one of them.
That realization became the foundation for my word for July:
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness Is More Than Forgiving Other People
When we hear the word forgiveness, we usually think about someone who hurt us.
And yes, that matters.
But the practice I felt called to in July went deeper than that.
For me, forgiveness had three parts.
First, receive God’s forgiveness.
Actually receive it.
Not theoretically.
Not, “Yes, I know God forgives me,” while continuing to mentally punish yourself for something that happened three years ago.
Receive it.
Second, forgive everybody else.
Whoever hurt you.
Whoever disappointed you.
Whoever misunderstood you.
Whoever should have done better.
Whoever you’re still having imaginary arguments with in your head.
All of them.
Give everybody amnesty.
And then came the part that became particularly important for me:
Forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself for every flaw.
Every mistake.
Every time you handled something poorly.
Forgive yourself for taking so long to get started.
Forgive yourself for having an attitude.
Forgive yourself for saying the wrong thing.
Forgive yourself for not washing the dishes last night.
Forgive yourself for not being perfect.
Forgive yourself for messing up.
Give yourself amnesty too.
And allow yourself to receive the forgiveness God has already offered you.
Forgiveness Is a Moment-by-Moment Practice
I started to realize that forgiveness, like gratitude, isn’t something you practice once.
It is something you may have to practice moment by moment.
You can forgive yourself in the morning and catch yourself criticizing yourself again by lunch.
You can pray about something and then find yourself replaying the offense three hours later.
So you forgive again.
And again.
And again.
Because as long as you’re living in unforgiveness, there can be a kind of tension underneath everything.
You’re bracing.
Defending.
Rehearsing.
Judging.
Keeping score.
Sometimes against another person.
Sometimes against yourself.
But the moment you practice forgiveness, something can release.
The shoulders come down.
The jaw unclenches.
The internal argument stops.
You are able to return to the present moment.
And for me, that mattered far beyond simply “feeling better.”
It changed what I could see.
Unforgiveness Can Keep You From Seeing What God Has Already Done
This was the revelation that hit me hardest.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that God hasn’t answered.
Sometimes we can’t see the answer.
Sometimes we are so consumed with what we did wrong, what somebody else did wrong, what hasn’t happened yet, or what somebody else has that we completely overlook what is already sitting in front of us.
Comparison does this too.
You become so preoccupied with how somebody else got where they are that you cannot recognize your own progress.
Their opportunity looks bigger.
Their success looks faster.
Their life looks easier.
And while you’re studying theirs, you miss yours.
You miss the preparation.
You miss the relationships.
You miss the knowledge you’ve accumulated.
You miss your own growth.
You miss the opportunity God has already placed directly in your path.
That morning I had to confront something uncomfortable:
There were things I had prayed for that I was already living in.
And I wasn’t fully appreciating them.
What Does Forgiveness Have to Do With Becoming a Millionaire MMOOMM?
Everything.
Millionaire MMOOMMS is not simply about making money.
The woman I envision when I think about this community is rooted in the Proverbs 31 woman.
God is first.
Family is second.
Career is third.
That order matters.
Because the goal isn’t simply to become successful.
The goal is to become a woman capable of recognizing, stewarding and enjoying the life God has entrusted to her.
And that requires internal work too.
If God offers forgiveness, we have to be willing to accept it.
When we do, our hearts can begin to heal.
We release some of the tension we have been carrying.
We stop wasting so much energy prosecuting ourselves.
And suddenly we have more capacity to recognize what God has already done.
We begin to see opportunities we may have been oblivious to before.
We begin to recognize our preparation.
We begin to recognize our gifts.
We begin to recognize ourselves.
Then July Happened
In July, my total sales through my business funding brokerage were $200,000.
And forgiveness was part of my morning routine throughout that month.
Those two things may appear completely unrelated.
I don’t believe they were.
Practicing forgiveness helped me recognize all the ways God had already prepared me for the season I was in.
Instead of constantly focusing on where I still needed to grow, I began noticing what was already there.
My knowledge.
My experience.
My professionalism.
My ability to communicate.
My understanding of business.
My ability to connect with entrepreneurs.
The lessons I’d accumulated over years of building, failing, adjusting, learning and trying again.
I could see my preparation.
And recognizing that preparation changed the way I showed up.
I worked passionately.
I worked with determination.
I trusted myself differently.
I walked into conversations aware that I had something valuable to offer.
And I experienced tremendous success that month.
Not because forgiveness is some magical formula for making $200,000 in sales.
It isn’t.
But forgiveness changed me.
And the woman doing the work matters.
What Forgiveness Looks Like in Real Life
The video accompanying this article is simply me driving to my office.
There is no elaborate setup.
I’m talking through these ideas in real time.
I share what practicing forgiveness moment by moment actually looks like in my life.
I share a personal experience.
And somewhere during the drive, the message I had been talking about suddenly lands differently for me.
I get emotional.
Because sometimes you can understand something intellectually before you finally understand it in your heart.
By the time I arrive at my office, I know exactly what I need to do.
I pray.
I receive forgiveness again.
And then I get to work.
It turned into an amazing day.
Maybe You Need Amnesty Too
So perhaps this is your reminder.
Receive God’s forgiveness.
Forgive them.
And forgive yourself.
For the business you haven’t started yet.
For the opportunity you didn’t recognize.
For the money mistake.
For procrastinating.
For the conversation you wish you could redo.
For the season when you weren’t your best self.
For the dishes sitting in the sink.
For being human.
Give yourself amnesty.
Then look around.
There may be more evidence of answered prayer in your life than you realized.
There may be opportunities you’ve been too distracted to see.
There may be preparation inside of you that you’ve been discounting.
And there may be a version of you waiting on the other side of forgiveness who is finally free enough to recognize what God has already done.
The word for July is forgiveness.
And for me, it changed much more than I expected.
Watch the video above and leave a comment sharing your biggest takeaway. I would love to know what part of this message landed for you.
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