Forgiveness

Have been doing some thinking about forgiveness. Sometimes it is easy. Maybe someone insults you or is rude to you or says something that hurts your feelings. You get over it and forgive them because you love them, they are your friend or co-worker or your boss or for whatever reason. Maybe you realize that they really didn't mean what they said or they didn't know that it would hurt you. They were just being sarcastic; that's their style of humor.  Life will be easier if you forgive and forget, so you do.

Sometimes it is not so easy, but you manage it over time. Maybe someone told a lie and a friendship was broken. You want to forgive this someone because you are close and you do not know how. But you need to forgive this person so you act as though you have. You do not say anything and go on as if nothing had happened. In time, and it could take years, many years, but the forgiveness comes. It is a lightening of the heart, a whisper across the soul...gone... free.

Then again, there are times when forgiving seems impossible. How do you forgive when someone crushes your lifelong dream? How do you forgive someone who corrupts the goodness of another's soul out of greed or a need to control? When someone whom you have believed to be a lifelong friend gives their word and then denies it. You know you have to forgive, for the sake of your own soul. So you can be forgiven for your own sins. But how? What if this person continues to treat you with hatred and scorn? And you know that it is only so this person can rationalize their own actions?

I am sure there are people out there who may have found it difficult, may even have found it impossible, to forgive me for past sins. I hope they can, for their sakes, not mine. I have certainly committed enough...for two lifetimes. But that is ancient history, and more importantly, has nothing whatsoever to do with the present. Happily I am no longer that person. I know that I have been Forgiven because I have been so blessed in every aspect of my life. As my late friend said, "I am blessed every day."

So, knowing this, how do I forgive what feels impossible to forgive? How do I not? But how do I? I don't have the answer yet.