Forgiveness

Though relationships with the important people in our lives can be difficult, even harrowing, the efforts we invest in resolving them are never lost and will bear fruit.

Forgiving is very hard especially when the other person keeps hurting us. But not forgiving is even harder because it is toxic and pollutes every other area in our emotional life. Booker T. Washington said, "I will permit no man to narrow or degrade my spirit by making me hate him."

If we cannot find it in our heart to forgive then we must pray for the grace of forgiveness. God will give it to us in time. One morning, we wake up and discover that the bitterness is finally gone. As my spiritual director suggested, "Fake it until you make it." When you don't have the emotion to back the action, you will find that by doing the action habitually, the emotion will follow. In this matter, it is the willing, not the feeling, that matters. Whenever we choose to do the kind thing every time we have the choice to make, ultimately it will make us become kind people. When we do not make room for unkindness in our scheme of things, eventually it will have to go away.

When we simply cannot muster the will to forgive someone, let us just ask God to bless that person. We don't have to talk to them or relate to these people who sorely grieve us. Just bless them. Simply say, "Lord, please bless her/him." All that means is you no longer wish them ill. That is the seed of forgiveness.

Over the years, I have collected passages on various and sundry things. Remember how I used to ask you to collect quotes? Here are some on forgiveness and healing relationships.

"Holding on to your anger, resentment, and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and lightness in your life." - Joan Lunden

"Peace begins with a smile - smile five times a day at someone you really don't want to smile at. Do it for peace." Mother Teresa

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." Albert Einstein

"The love of our neighbor in its fullness simply means being able to say to him, 'What are you going through?'" - Simone Weil

"We have to forgive each other...for being so infinitely less than we ought to be. We have to learn to give where we had hoped to get and to understand where we had hoped to be understood." - Harold Loukes

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." - Mahatma Gandhi

"It isn't life that weighs us down - it's the way we carry it." - Elizabeth Potier

"Mercy does not indicate one incident, but a constant attitude to everyone." - Simeon the New Theologian

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." - Samuel Johnson

"It is never easy to live with other people; it is much simpler to be a saint alone." - Esther de Waal

There is one by Martin Luther King which I cannot find at this moment which says something to the effect that Forgiveness is a habitual attitude, not random actions.

Peace, Little One