How hard it is to forgive. Whether the damage is relational, or material - doesn't make a difference, it is still difficult for a person to take the step towards forgiveness. Maybe someone accuses you of untrue things behind your back. Maybe your business partner steals from you. Maybe a manager fails to uphold a promise. Maybe your child/spouse/sibling/friend lies to you about something important.
In these cases involving a personal betrayal, keep in mind one important fact:
Forgiveness is not the same thing as forgetting.
To forgive is simply to stop wishing for revenge or to stop wanting to see the other person suffer in some way. But forgiveness is not blind. Because trust has been violated you cannot just forget what happened or else the same thing might happen again. There’s a saying that unless we remember history we will be condemned to repeat it. So let’s face it—even though you might forgive a person who has betrayed your trust, your trust in that person has been crushed.
Trust can be repaired only by time through a gradual process of rebuilding. You have to get to “know” the person all over again. The sad thing is that through what you learn, you may have to accept the fact that the other person can never be trusted again. On the other hand, if the other person is truly repentant, that may be all that is necessary to nourish a new growth of trust between the two of you.
Truly, it can be hard to forgive if you dwell only on your own desire for satisfaction. So try thinking about
• how the energy to keep a grudge alive will ultimately drain away your strength;
• how a desire for revenge will defile you and may even unconsciously make you into a person as hurtful and vicious as the one who hurt you;
• the unfortunate life circumstances and traumas that may have motivated your victimizer
So remember that if anyone has ever hurt you, you don’t find forgiveness, you give it.
If you have ever hurt others, all you can do is feel sorrow for your behavior; in sorrow, you can apologize, and you can make amends, but whether or not others forgive you is their choice.
No matter what anyone does to you, no one can take away from you your capacity to do good. You lose it only by willingly giving it up yourself.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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