The Art of Forgiveness

The art of forgiveness 


As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be able to forgive. I once read that forgiveness is more for the one who was hurt over the one who hurt. That harbouring unforgiveness is like holding onto hot coal, expecting the other person to get burnt. The other person doesn't know you're carrying the coal; they don't know you're holding on to the pain, resentment, anger. Unforgiveness results in more hurt over the healing that can take place. 

I used to think forgiveness meant glossing over everything, forgetting, accepting an apology and blindly moving forward. I used to think forgiveness meant throwing the hurt away and pretending it never happened. I also used to think forgiveness and forgiving made me a good person, and I wanted to believe I was a good person. 
I've been rethinking what forgiveness means to me. Growing up in church, I heard a lot about forgiveness. The premise of Christianity is that God loves us so dearly that he sent his son to die, which meant never-ending forgiveness from him. There is more to it than that, but we don't need to delve into it now.
I don't remember word for what the bible says now, but Google does. 
"The Bible teaches that we should forgive someone who sins against us as often as they repent. Jesus said that we should forgive not seven times but seventy times seven, meaning there is no limit on forgiveness."

I was once convinced that forgiveness meant forgetting every wrongdoing against you; now, it means letting go of the wrongdoing and not wanting to cause wrong to those who first wronged you. Forgiveness does not mean accepting hurtful behaviour but showing grace and mercy to those who wrong us; it means not allowing those feelings of hurt, resentment, and anger to dictate our lives and behaviours. 

Does everyone who hurts you deserve forgiveness - Absolutely not. In reality, there are times when it's seemingly impossible to forgive and let go of what happened, especially when the pain still haunts you. 
However, do you deserve to forgive everyone? 100%. Unforgiveness causes the initial pain to go that much deeper. In many situations, the person who hurt you has let go of what happened, not realise it happened, laughing about what happened or denying what happened (those last two apply if their hurt was intentional and malicious). Your forgiveness is not for someone else; it's for you. You don't even need to let people know that you have forgiven them - honestly, if someone isn't remorseful, they don't deserve to know.
In saying this, forgiveness exists to bring you peace and empower you to acknowledge the pain without allowing that pain to define you or your future. 

Forgiveness is designed to set you free. If the wrong-doer is genuinely sorry, it sets them free, too. But if they're not sorry, and some people aren't, at minimum, it sets you free. And you deserve to live in freedom. Forgiveness doesn't tell you not to be hurt, sad, or to get over it. It just means that the person that caused the hurt doesn't haunt you. You don't spend every day thinking of them, and you don't let them live rent-free in your mind or heart. 

I don't know the steps to forgiveness or the timeline. I know that when I have been deeply hurt, I have wanted to forgive but haven't been ready. Not being able to forgive right away, I now realise, it doesn't make me a bad person, it just makes me a person. Sometimes forgiveness happens when we don't even realise it. We continue through life and realise the people who hurt us no longer take up space in our mind. 
Other times, we need to focus on letting go and hone in on it. 

It's interesting that often when we've been hurt, deeply hurt, we carry the shame of what the wrongdoer did against us. 
Questions such as, what's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? This is my fault., I have no worth, I have no value, if I didn't do this, this wouldn't have happened, flowing through our minds freely. 
The truth is the actions of others are never your fault, and while we often victim blame ourselves, you are not the cause of someone else actions - only they can take responsibility for that. 
When we forgive others, it allows us to offer that same forgiveness to ourselves, in the sense that we're freeing ourselves from the shame and hurt we carry. If we forgive the wrongdoer, we can't stay angry at ourselves. ​

I think unforgiveness, over time, makes us lose ourselves. Hurt does not deserve the power of taking who you are. 
Bitterness and resentment change us and the structure of our being. We deserve better than that, more than that. Our hearts deserve peace and quiet, and unforgiveness doesn't allow for a peace that settles us. 
I do think forgiveness is the harder path to walk down, and unforgiveness is the path of least resistance. However, in the long run, and over time, unforgiveness is the path that will hurt you the most. It's the path that will cause bitterness, and resentment and for you to act in a way where you don't recognise yourself. 

Forgiving someone doesn't mean you need to reconcile with them, it doesn't mean you need to reconnect or be in a relationship with them.
I think forgiveness is ongoing, and when you think you're past it and it comes up again, you need to go down the path of forgiveness a second, third, or fourth time. 

Maybe this is why Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven - because he knows that forgiveness isn't linear, and is ongoing, that it takes more than once to forgive someone. 

So Alexis - when the opportunity arises; forgive, forgive and forgive again - not because the other person deserves it, but because you do.