My Take On Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the act of letting go of the hurt caused to you by someone or people. The obvious fact is that some people don't even know that they offended another, so we hold back the grudge, expecting an apology from them, and we never get it.

As a believer, I have heard the message of forgiveness for over three decades of my life and have not stopped listening to it. In the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, the subject of forgiveness was not alluded to. He encouraged his disciples to forgive the wrongs done to them by others so that they too will be forgiven. But as I search the Bible on a daily basis, I have not seen a place that is written to forget the wrong that was done to you by others. This is to say, it is not an easy thing for someone to wipe off the memory from his heart. Truth be told, forgiveness and forgetting are not a package deal. They stand on their own; they exist independently.Personally I don't hold on to hurts done to me by others to the point of saying I will never forgive this person.

No, I want and need my own wrongs to be forgiven, so I will also forgive others their wrongs, but the place of forgetting is so difficult to be done. There are wrongs that serve as a long-age lesson that will always help to inform our future decisions. Forgetting a wrongdoing that was done to us is nearly impossible. Even if you don't recall it always, for every action, something will happen someday that will lead to its remembrance.

Maybe you are even having a discussion and the topic twists towards that direction, and bam, you just recall it and just pass. If after you recall the scenario and you still feel the same way you felt when the wrong was done against you, then you have not truly forgiven. Imagine having to forgive someone who killed one's father or siblings. You see that it is not easy to be done but as a believer, I just have to forgive, but that does not mean I should give myself to such a person or even the family because, first, they are still deeply into their bad acts and still look for more privilege to do more wickedness.

I remember also teaching my kids to forgive one another, but first they have to learn how to say sorry. So at times they will do a wrong thing and tell me sorry, and if they notice that I am still not happy, they will be like, "Money, you will not forgive us?" I will be like, "You keep saying sorry, and you still repeat that same thing you are asked not to do, so what's the point?"

After all, I still forgive them, and we keep rolling. Some people don't even feel a thing or two when they wrong you; they don't even see what they do as a wrong thing. At this point, one just has to help himself by forgiving and then placing them in a position where they won't be able to get you, not to mention hurt you, in such a way again.

That is my thought on this subject. Thank you for reading.