Forgiveness

I am amazed, again, that time keeps marching on regardless of my feelings on the matter. Perhaps we should add an extra day to every week. An eight day week would be helpful. 
My church is in the middle of a season called 'NT in 30' for this month. The goal is that we, as a whole church, will read the entire New Testament during this month. It is incredible the amount of work that has gone into planning this month. There is a reading plan, a blog page and supplementary information (like the historical background of certain books etc). Everyone was given a bookmark with the reading plan on it also. 
Anyway... yesterday was Matthew chapters 1 - 12. Today was Matthew 13 - 23. There have been a few verses or repeated idea that have jumped out at me, but now I want to talk about this one in particular:

'So also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.' Matthew 18:35

The issue is forgiveness...
When I read that verse today, God reminded me of a journey in forgiveness that I have taken before, that of forgiving my step Father.
When I first came back to God (2005), very soon God spoke to me about forgiving my step Father for all the things he had done that had hurt me so deeply. It took 4 months to reach a point where I could honestly say I forgave him. 
At the start, I had no desire. I didn't want to forgive him. He had done some very deep damage to me, my identity, and had affected my core beliefs about myself. He gave me a very bad example of a Father which, in turn, affected the way I saw God as my Dad.
But every morning, I woke up and asked God to change my heart, to give me a desire to forgive him.
The turning point was a vision that God gave me. I saw my step Father when he was a little boy. God showed me some of the deep wounds that he had received when he was small and defenseless. I started to weep for him, for him as a little boy who had been rejected and hurt.
From there, God developed a heart for my step Father. He had wronged me. He did not deserve forgiveness. But he was also a hurting man. Hurting people hurt people...
I continued to pray for God to grow in me a heart of love and forgiveness. It was NOT EASY. My step Father was in the same house and still continued his destructive and hurtful behaviour. 
As I said, it took four months, but by the grace of God, I forgave him. 
Now, I am facing the same thing. There is a situation in my life where I am not moving forward because I have not forgiven certain people. They wronged me. They did it with the best intentions, I am really sure of that, but hurt was done in my heart. 
As I read that verse today, this situation came rushing to my mind and I feel like I am at the start of the same path again. 
I do not WANT to forgive them, but I WANT TO WANT TO forgive.


Daddy, please work in my heart. Please come and give me your love and your heart for the people who have hurt me and caused me pain. I want to see them and love them the way you do. Please give me your eyes to see...