Forgiveness

Forgiveness enables you to bury your grudge in the icy earth and

put the past behind you. You flush resentment away by being

the first to forgive. Forgiveness fashions your future. It is a brave

and brash thing to do. The gutsiest decision you can make. As you

forgive others, winter will soon make way for springtime as fresh joy

pushes up through the soil of your heart.

Forgiveness is a stunning principal, your ticket out of hate and fear

and chaos. I know what regret feels like; I’ve earned my credentials.

But I also know what forgiveness feels like, because God has

so graciously forgiven me. Forgiveness frees you of the past so

you can make good choices today.

The practice of forgiveness can play an important role in your relationships

with others. Forgiveness will enable you to correct distortions in your relationships

and to improve the quality, intensity, and meaningfulness of relationships. It means

letting go of past resentments toward others so that you can experience them

in the present. Even if you do not "feel" like forgiving someone, forgiving them

will release you from the hold of the past and allow you to experience the world

in a new way. To forgive is to step outside the vicious circle of interpretation,

where concepts from the past dominate experience, and to begin to live in terms

of a larger, more worthy purpose. Forgiveness eliminates fear

and anxiety, weakness and vulnerability.

Forgiveness is at the heart of a healthy and happy life. Forgiveness protects relationships. It also protects the person who does the forgiving. Forgiveness is a method for giving love. It is a way of saying, "I am going to let go

of the wrong you did; I am not going to be bitter and I am going

to go on loving you anyway."

God heals through forgiveness and asks that we do likewise. Attack is an easier response than forgiveness, and that is why we are so tempted to give into it. Throughout our lives we have seen more anger than examples of true forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that we suppress anger; forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle: the ability to see through mistakes that someone has made

to the truth that lies in all of our hearts. . . .Forgiveness is not always easy.

At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one

that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves. The first step

in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.