Thoughts of LoWriter

Forgiveness

I am going to dispense my thoughts on forgiveness here, as I have had occasion over the last few weeks to think a lot about it. These are not going to be "my thoughts based on the Holy Scriptures" or "my thoughts based on the Laws of This Country" or even "my thoughts based on what I Ought to Think." These are just my thoughts.

Forgivenes, despite what many believe, does not mean that you have to "kiss and make up" so to speak. It does not mean that you have to go back to being best friends with people who have hurt you deeply; it does not mean that you have to accept the person as they are. I think forgiveness happens when you stop carrying around anger in your heart towards a certain person who has hurt you or offended you. This is because I don't think forgiveness is about the other person; it's about you.

Who is most hurt by your anger? Usually the people around you who don't deserve it or you yourself are hurt by your anger. The person you're angry at doesn't get hurt because you're angry. This is why we are supposed to forgive. Anger makes us ugly, does nothing constructive, and breaks up the other relationships in our lives.

I don't think forgiveness means that you have to put yourself in the same situation, setting yourself up to be hurt again and again. I think forgiveness means that you no longer resent the person for their actions. I think forgiveness happens when you can pity the person who did you wrong and think of them as a child of God even though you don't want to hang out with them anymore. For me, it's the point at which I would help the person instead of kick the person if they were hurt and in need.

There are times when "reunion" is preferable, in my opinion. These times are especially when the harm done to you was not intentional or selfishly motivated. It was done, but the person had good intentions at the time.

I am not the best at forgiving people, yet I am finding that there are probably only about four or five people that I haven't forgiven in my life. One is our high school principal, one is a woman I knew in high school, one is a semi-relation, and one is my arch nemesis. Someday I will probably forgive them all. I am working on it, but there's a quote that basically says that if you're going to work on loving people, don't start with the most evil person you can think of.

So, all this is to say that I don't think trusting and forgiving are the same thing. I think forgiving has to do with letting go of anger, but trust is something that you build over time. Sometimes it gets holes in it and you have to either start again or abandon the project all together. If there wasn't much there to start with, often it's best to just abandon it. But if there was a significant foundation and if it was important to you, then you will rebuild. Reconstruction isn't a requirement of forgiveness. Neither is friendship. But sometimes you get both.

Posted by LoWriter at April 29, 2005 10:10 AM