Forgiveness does not always lead to a healed relationship but it is a good way to start. This makes me question the popular saying "when you forgive and then you forget" which means until you can forgive you wont be able to forget what happened and when you don't remember, everything goes back to normal like it never happened. Humans are blessed with the ability to remember every experience they have or go through, it helps them get better, work on areas that need attention, provide valuable lessons. So how do you get to forgive and forget if you still remember everything that happened? How do you truly let go, how do you stop yourself from hurting? Forgiveness is a big deal, easier said than done and sometimes we assume we have forgiven whoever hurts us, a trip down memory brings back unexpressed emotions ranging from anger, resentment to physical pain. So what then is forgiveness?? It is simply giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me, to cease from resentment from hurt or offense. I want to lay emphasis on the word cease, which means to put an end or stop. So how do you explain that weird feeling you get when you remember the offense? Do we really forgive? How do we let go of the hurt? especially when we were betrayed by the people we trust the most or love, Is it easy to just let it go like that? Why is it easy to forgive a stranger but difficult to forgive the people we care about? Our relationship with them compromise true forgiveness? What about cases where people actually forgive but it comes with a price of letting the offender go completely by cutting them out, if memory plays it purpose, they would rather not have a constant reminder of the hurt whenever they see the person. Again i ask do we really forgive? Bitterness is only few inches away. People who have being hurt sometimes say its not really about the offense but about the person who committed the offense. The feeling of betrayal and shock, this explains why regardless of how much they say they have forgiven the offense committed, having the offender around them makes it difficult for them to let it go completely so they resort to complete elimination, the process of cutting them out. Apologies sometimes are way over rated as it is so easy for people to say "i am sorry" and not mean it or say those words and yet it does not make the situation any better. When we say karma would take its course, does it mean we are hoping the offender gets hurt as well? The purpose of forgiveness is defeated. Do we really forgive? Humans are complicated beings and i am not saying achieving complete forgiveness is not possible but it has to come from you forgiving yourself first before you can forgive others. In painful situations where we are left traumatized or shocked, first we blame ourselves about why we got hurt, how we put ourselves in the position to get hurt and how we allowed the hurt to happen. We try to pick on our weakness, If only we were stronger, wiser, less trusting, not naive, less caring. True forgiveness comes from within. It may have being that we put ourselves in harms way by caring too much or trusting too much but understand this, blaming yourself would not make the situation any better for you to make sense out of it, it would not take away the hurt, blaming the offender would not take back the words they said or their actions towards you and how we absorbed it: stored it in our long memory compartment. Sharing blames never makes it easy to move on. The offense sometimes may be hard to get over, people may not understand how much it may have hurt you also but would you rather live your life trapped in bitterness and resentment, devising means on how to get payback??? Consider this, no matter what you do to get even, even if its worse than the offense or hurt, it may make you feel better or not but you would have wasted so much time which includes days, months, years in planning, which you would not definitely get back. So you wasted valuable time of your life trying to get even when you could have being focusing how to stay and maintain your happiness, embarking on self discovery, building a better life for yourself? Do you see how much you give up to get even? Do we deliberately hold on to a grudge to play the victim? to get sympathy? to get others to feel empathy for us and take sides? Do we hold on to the hurt as a reminder to ourselves never to be over trusting, never to open up? For whatever reason you may have, until you completely forgive, you are in bondage. Yes i said it, BONDAGE!!! A bitter person can never experience or appreciate happiness. You can forgive and not forget, of course how can you forget part of what makes up your life experience but you CAN decide to let go of the hurt and move on... by forgiving yourself, forgiving who hurt you and not allowing the situation change who you are by building up painful memories and committing yourself to it. If we shut down a part of us whenever we are hurt by others or a situation, in no time we become a cheap version of ourselves and lose everything real we have ever known. To err is human but to forgive is divine. What that means is, people would hurt you, break your spirit with hurtful words and actions but in forgiving them you prove to them how much better and stronger you are to let it go, get back to the joy of being alive and having the love of the people you cherish the most. Forgiveness does not come with a price tag, it comes from within. You can forgive the person who hurt you and still love them, have them in your life also. Think on this, if for every time you have ever hurt your parents or friends and they actually forgave you but cut you out, where would you be today? having being abandoned by the people you love??? Nobody is perfect, you have hurt other people as well and if you are truthful to yourself, maybe even worse than the offense you are holding on to. The people you hurt still loved you regardless then why can you not do the same thing too?? Are you too good to forgive? even when we sin against God, commit all sorts of atrocities, i understand we are not God but we were created in His image and likeness that makes us demi gods. God is still ever loving and merciful to forgive, why cant we do the same??? People would always make mistakes, forgiveness is the only way to look past that mistake. They say love covers multitude of sin, a broad definition of sin includes offense, offense results to pain and hurt. Can we allow love help us to forgive. Think carefully on the mistakes you have made and the steps you took in correcting them, how you were forgiven, how you were given a second chance and then decide to do the same. Give someone a second chance. Phone calls, text message, BBM, yahoo messenger, Skype, twitter, Facebook or any form of social network platform, reach out to the people you have offended and ask for forgiveness. You may think you have a clean record but sometimes we hurt people without even realizing it. You can start with this "i am sorry i hurt you, i am sorry i said words to you that i know i cannot take back, i am sorry for all my actions, the way i treated you, i am sorry for not realizing how much i hurt you, i am sorry for sending this late. it may not change anything between us, i understand you have the right to be upset and angry but i can not move on knowing that i hurt you. i do not want you to become a bitter person, from your heart i ask that you forgive me. " You may not get immediate response but you have taken the first step. To people holding on to a grudge, let it go. Forgiveness is not an easy process, you do it everyday till it hurts no more. Say this with me "I forgive those who have hurt me, for i have hurt others and i have being forgiven. they gave me a second chance to act right and do things better so i deliberately choose to give someone else a chance. it does not fix the pain or hurt but forgiveness is the first step" . Always remember, FORGIVENESS is the first step!
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