True Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do in life. The words are easy to say, but the rest of what comes with is not so. There have been countless times in my life where someone has said, “I’m sorry,” or “Please forgive me,” and I have said I did, but when it really came down to it; I was still holding on. It was like I had this cut on my arm that started to scab and heal, but I kept picking at it. This prevents the cut from fully healing or at least leaves me with a nasty scar when it finally does. If I take the proper steps my cut will heal and if it even leaves a scar, it will be a small one.

Here are a few verses and quotes I found on the subject before I give a personal anecdote:
Proverbs 19:11
11 A person’s wisdom yields patience;
it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
Colossians 3:13
13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~Paul Boese
There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site. ~Sydney Harris

So here is my take on the subject from personal experience. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but it is a FORWARD motion. True forgiveness is allowing both you and the person who has “wronged” you to move forward. Continually dwelling on and holding on to it really just causes both people to suffer. Most of the time WE prevent our own healing.

I know that I am young, but I have had A LOT of experience when it comes to people causing pain and how hard true forgiveness really is. In middle school I was broken by the rejection of the people who were suppose to be my friends, I had people tell secrets that I had entrusted to them to everyone they could, I’ve let people passed my “walls” only to have them turn their backs on me, and so on and so on. I am no stranger to the destructive power of others, but over the past two years God has been revealing to me his healing power. It isn’t a passive process people. You don’t just say, “I forgive you,” and then pray that God heals your wounds; that is part of it, but true healing is an active process.

With all the pain and brokenness of my past, I prayed for years that God would bring healing into my life; particularly in one friendship of mine that had barely been holding on for the last 2 years or so. There were times when I would get so angry at even just the thought of what happened or on occasion find myself crying, and that was after we had both apologized. What I didn’t realize until a year ago was that we were lacking the most important part, moving forward. Once we did, it allowed us both to heal and it is what saved our friendship. She and I haven’t forgotten what happened and never will, it is part of what has come to define me (the process of healing), but we’ve moved on to bigger and better things. We made a mess, but instead of standing there in it saying, “Well this really sucks,” we stepped forward out of it all and started fresh.

True forgiveness is not easy, but the best things in life never are. Holding on to the issue not only hurts you, but it hurts them. They asked for forgiveness so that they could move forward, but YOU are preventing THEM from being able to do that. Nobody, no matter how much we wish they were, is perfect. Everyone in your life is going to let you down or hurt you at some point in your life no matter how hard you try to prevent it, BUT what you can control is what YOU do when it happens. Are you going to dwell on it, gossip, and hold you and them hostage with it or are you going to forgive them, love them, and move forward? These are the moments that define us. Who will you choose to be?

I leave you with this one last quote to chew on:
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule. ~Lewis B. Smedes