Disturbed By Forgiveness

Many years ago at my friend's wedding the pastor delivered a very simple sermon about forgiveness as an essential "survival" tool in marriage and friendship.  It wasn't a very impressive or eloquent exhortation but it was enough to rattle another friend seated beside me.  At the reception she kept on harping about how dull the marriage advice given at the wedding ceremony.  She thought it was an awful advice to give newly-weds, crushing their joy in the early days of marital bliss with what seems to be the burden of humility.  She was also trying to defend her beloved position that she does not have to forgive the unforgivable people in her life.

Forgiveness is such a difficult exercise in virtue. Our minds and hearts are ever battling for that position of being right or superior.  Decades of hurt that continue to scar our ability to let go get magnified with every memory. I'm not talking here about deep hurts that might require professional counseling.  I'm talking about your run-of the mill sort of festering hurts, if there were such a thing, that happened (in kindergarten!) that we still carry into adulthood. I'm also talking about the ones that happened in our adulthood that nag the core of our soul begging for justice.  The kind of hurt that we simply cannot relinquish to the past and move on, hopefully you do not have one.

It used to perplex me when people I expect to be the ones quick to forgive carry the heaviest grudge.  I'm no longer perplexed, such is the human condition, now it just causes me to get down on my knees to pray for peace for that person.  There can't be peace in the heart of somebody who holds a grudge. I speak here from experience, I'm sure we all can.

The hardest step towards forgiveness is enduring that inward look into our souls to go through the muck that (years of) anger has created.  And the toughest person to forgive at the end of it all is ourselves.

Forgive someone today!