The Gift and Work of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not some supernatural event that fixes everything. It can't be. Asking it to be is too much to expect as well as absolving us the work it takes to right a wrong or at least acknowledge a wrong that can't be righted. Forgiveness is all about accountability and absolves no one from the need for accountability.

Forgiveness is essential to life. It allows hurts to mend, amends to be made, and offers a way to move forward. Sometimes that forgiveness allows people to move forward together, but sometimes it helps them move forward apart. When they move forward together, that's growing closer. When they move forward apart, that's finding closure. Both are important at different times in life.

Forgiveness isn't something we do for the other person. It's a gift we give ourselves. It's a letting go of what's beyond our control. It's an acceptance of what happened and whose accountable. Forgiveness allows us to stop clinging to the mud miring us in our pain.

I used to think forgiveness meant to forget, but it doesn't. We can't forget the experiences that shape of us no matter how much we want to. I've come to realize that I learn from my experiences, the wrongs committed against me, and the wrongs I commit against others.  The sooner we accept that reality, the sooner we find enough healing to forge ahead.  The experiences that most need forgiven are likely to have been impactful enough to not be forgettable. Forgetting often isn't even all that desirable.

Forgiveness doesn't mean putting yourself back in the position to allow someone who has proven themselves unchanged to hurt you all over again. We often think that when we forgive someone, we have to let them continue a pattern of hurtful behavior. We don't. This is where the idea of not forgetting comes into play, and why I believe that sometimes forgiveness does come with a debt. That debt is in the form of reformed behavior. Without it, forgiveness is just setting one's self up to be hurt again and again and again...

When I embrace the idea that forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, I come closer to embracing the idea that there is no debt. I say this in large part because there are people I've forgiven who I will never see again and who I never want to see again. And there are people I've forgiven whose apology would mean nothing to me because I know the people well enough to know their apology always comes with a "but" that turns the fault for the harm they inflicted back on me.

Forgiveness is finding a way to not allow the past to hold myself or others hostage. Forgiving myself is always much harder than forgiving other people. I will remember my mistakes for years upon years, sometimes for decades.

Forgiveness offers the tools to move on with life. Forgiveness has helped me build deeper, stronger relationships while also allowing me varying degrees of closure to events I can never change.

Forgiveness is work and therefore it can never be a supernatural event. It isn't something that magically erases the past and gives one a new future. It is the work of acknowledging and accepting and feeling and understanding. It is the work of addressing and taking responsibility. It is the work of deciding how to proceed. It is figuring out how to move forward, start over, or change directions as the case may require. Forgiveness might seem like some beautiful, magical way to feel all better, and it can be a true gift if we're willing to put in the work that true forgiveness demands.

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