Forgiveness

Many people struggle with unforgiveness. Either we cannot forgive ourselves or someone who has hurt us.

Unfortunately, where there is unforgiveness there is often also misery and even ill-health. In counselling, medical and spiritual circles diseases like arthritis and cancer especially are said to be linked to the inability to forgive.

“How could you forgive your stepfather for what he did to you?” is the one question Sue (founder of Wonderful Women) says she has most often been asked of her experience of childhood sexual abuse.

“Fortunately, once I started thinking about whether I should – or even could – forgive my stepfather, a few things helped make up my mind. I realised that my stepdad was mostly a good man who always tried to do the right thing. But he had been shaped by events in his past; being sexually abused as a child himself.

I knew full well that I am also imperfect. Yet despite this, I believe God extended great mercy to me and loved me anyway. This allowed me to show mercy to Les. My faith advocates forgiveness. I wanted to be obedient to this.

Ultimately, forgiving my stepfather was EASY. Forgiving myself was tough.” 

Forgiveness offers a new opportunity for living life in the moment without clinging to the past. It offers you the choice to lay down your burdens and walk freely today. When you hold on to the past, you cannot embrace the present with open arms.

Forgiveness allows you to access your personal power to CHOOSE to release pain from your own heart but it’s not a destination you arrive at in one trip. Rather it’s a lifestyle that recognizes that we ALL fall short. Sometimes unintentionally we can do things that hurt others.

Every person is doing their best given their upbringing and conditioning, and as we know better we usually do better.

Forgiveness is the balloon that lifts us all above hating. We can grab hold of it anytime. Every time we do it we make more room in our hearts for inner peace and compassion to grow.  
Does this mean that we should be passive in the face of abuse? Absolutely not! The Bible even says that we must verbally confront someone who has wronged us, to avoid hating that person in our heart. We must do so directly and emphatically, but without destroying the relationship. In addition, we have an obligation to protect ourselves and not put ourselves in a vulnerable position where the offense may be repeated. But we need to do this without speaking with hostility or taking any action that goes beyond self-protection. So this prohibits revenge for instance, or purposely giving someone the cold shoulder or harbouring feelings of judgmental contempt.

In personal relationships, underneath unforgiveness if you look a bit deeper you usually find hurt, fear and the need to love and be loved. So, if you find yourself in a place where you think that you cannot forgive, irrational thoughts and fears are probably at the root. If you were to deeply examine your feelings you might be in a better position to identify and correct any cognitive distortions. If you remain stuck, a counsellor could help you with this process.

What Forgiveness Is Not

1. Play-acting for show

Remember when as a child you were forced by some adult to "forgive" someone who was first forced to "say sorry" to you? Is this really repentance by the perpetrator... or forgiveness by the victim? Probably not; it’s more like a temporary ceasefire for the sake of the grown-ups. This childish pantomime of "forgiveness" often carries into adulthood as a superficial substitute for the real thing. We think by "saying so", it is so. But it is not.

2. Denial

Forgetting is NOT forgiving. If we forgive we will forget as a result. But the reverse is not true: forgetting is not forgiving--it is denial.

We might be fooling ourselves and others that we have "forgiven". But all of the emotions and hurt are still there--only held back by the immense force of will that is needed to sustain deliberate denial. When we see "that person" again all the anger and pain is bound to rise up again. Or, we catch ourselves in an elaborate meditation of revenge. This just proves how shallow and ineffective this sort of "forgiveness" is.

A mind "forced" into a state of denial has a nasty way of "snapping back" – often at the worst possible time.

Denial is merely an illusion: flimsy and fake. Forgiveness is real: solid and deep; calling not for avoiding the truth, but for dealing with it squarely, however painful.

Until real forgiveness takes place, the offender is "in our face". If and when we enter into true forgiveness, we can see them once again without the offense looming between us.

3. Revenge

In the face of an enemy, who has not pictured ‘’the final showdown’’ where the enemy endures scorching retribution? Bitterness, revenge, hatred; they all have a perverted sort of appeal. Yet none are helpful. In fact these things keep both the perpetrator AND YOU from stepping into a better future which makes it a high price to pay.

4. Overlooking what has happened or absolving the guilty person of responsibility

Forgiving doesn't always mean resuming a relationship with whoever has hurt you.  If a person won't meet you halfway or has been abusive, it may be better to forgive but then to maintain some distance. That way, you can protect yourself but still reap the benefits. 

The pain may not be completely gone.  One can forgive and still grieve a loss or feel pain from a wound. Damage and wounds can take time to repair. Forgiveness does not deny responsibility for behaviour.  You have simply committed to NOT hold the other person in debt.

Forgiveness can be a slow process.

Ways to forgive:

1. Write down with pen and paper all of the things that you have done wrong to yourself and others.  It is important to write.  Typing on a keyboard is not the same.
2. Read the list – preferably aloud.
3. Now say "I did the best that I could with the knowledge that I had at the time. I now forgive myself and go free because I am worthy of love, worthy of happiness and worthy of joy.” 
4. Burn or shred the list.
5. Choose to forgive yourself and then move forward and let go of your past.  Live for today and enjoy the journey of life itself.

Repeat the exercise for each person who has hurt you. Say their name aloud and verbalise what you are releasing them from if possible.

How will we know if true forgiveness has taken place?

In the range of human emotions, true forgiveness ranks as one of the most pleasurable that a human can feel. Most of us have had some experience of true forgiveness, even if vicariously; through a feel-good movie for instance.

Corrie Ten Boom, a woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust, said, "Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free, and to realize the prisoner was you."

Forgiveness is characterized by the freedom that comes as a result. When the burden of bitterness is removed, there is a supernatural "rightness" to it. Love floods in where once there was intense dislike or even hatred. This is no accident. It is the very nature of our creator coursing through us. It is grace at work.