"Can sins be forgiven"

- Cloud, Final Fantasy 7: Advent children.

In the Final Fantasy movie, this guy called Cloud feels like absolute crap for not being there to save Aeris when he dies. He asks Vincent the above quote, Vincent doesn't know the answer. He said he hasn't tried yet.

The thing is, with Cloud, he had been forgiven. Aeris had forgiven him (she makes a lot of appearences for a dead chick), all his friends don't blame him, or have forgiven him if they do, but he has trouble forgiving himself.

I'm sure we all know exactly how Cloud feels, like he's let the world down (or in this case, the girl of his dreams, which is the same thing :p), and he's just so caught up in it, he doesn't realise that he's just dragging around this issue, for no reason - everyone has forgiven him!!

zuru-zuru zuru-zuru

This is something Cloud's childhood friend, Tifa, says. It's japanese onomatopeia for dragging (apparently - that's what some subtitles said). It was relating to Cloud & the Aeris' death issue - he was just dragging it around, and it wasn't helping nothing.

How does all this relate to us? I know how it relates to me :p definetely. Things we do wrong to other people - even after saying we're sorry, repenting, and being told that it's ok, we're forgiven, that's not enough for us

Even though we've prayed for forgiveness, and we know we've received it - God has told us this many many times through the bible, it's still not enough for us to feel ok about it.

WHY can we forgive others so easily, why can we be forgiven by God so easily, forgiven BY others so easily, but have such a hard time forgiving outselves?

How do we even forgive ourselves? When we do things wrong, it feels like the core of us is rotten, and takes a long time to feel good again.

And even when we've gotten over whatever it is, we're never really over it. I know I still feel bad about something that happened back in primary school, even though my 'friend' back then has forgiven me for it.

Lord, I'm sorry for all the things I've done, and I know you're loving and forgiving, please give me the strength to accept the forgiveness of You, and of others, and please Lord, give me the courage to forgive myself.