Practising Forgiveness

Another Christmas done, another Celebration ticked off the calendar. We have had our fill of mince pies (well, maybe not, in my case!) The calendar year draws to a close, and new opportunities lie in wait for us, up ahead. Just a last-minute tidy-up, a quick checking for dust in the corners, and we’ll be ready to face whatever the New Year holds. Or so we hope.
However, to start off the new year with fresh purpose, we need to ensure that we are not leaving behind things left undone, and that is why I think it is important to look at the practise of Forgiveness.
What does it truly mean, to forgive one another? What processes do you need to go through in order to genuinely forgive? There are many occasions in the Bible when we are exhorted to forgive one-another, for example:

“Forgive, as the Lord Forgave You!” Colossians 3:13.

But how, Lord, how do I really forgive? How do I turn that barrier between myself and others into an opportunity to love?
It was not until I read the words of Edith Egar, a concentration camp survivor, that I began to catch a glimpse of both the paradoxical complexity and fragile simplicity that forgiveness involves.
She wrote these profound words:

“You cannot forgive if you are still waiting for the past to change.”

If you are waiting for someone to EARN your forgiveness – then you are poisoning your own life while you wait, and you might be waiting a very long time.
If you are going to magnanimously GIFT someone forgiveness, while secretly believing they don’t really deserve it, then you are nurturing resentment, which will fester and corrupt.
Saying you cannot forgive someone, because you need JUSTICE, or RESTITUTION, is the same as waiting for the harm to be undone. It cannot be undone. It happened. Recognising that the past cannot be changed is the first step towards forgiving.

We can rarely get to the truth of what motivated people to hurt us. Choosing to heal, and let go, choosing to offer them LOVE, regardless, is to offer that same grace of forgiveness as Jesus Himself. We are exhorted to love one another – and forgiveness is that gift of love, to see someone’s faults, and offer them love, anyway.
Forgiveness, ultimately, isn’t just something that you offer to others. Forgiveness is also a healing that you give TO YOURSELF.

Forgiveness IS accepting that the past won’t change. And in doing so, it is giving yourself the gift of the future. Forgiveness is never easy but, like most things in life, it gets better with practise.
Keep practising forgiveness, no matter how long it takes.

“Forgive our sins as we forgive”, you taught us, Lord, to pray;
But you alone can grant us grace to live the words we say.
How can your pardon reach and bless the unforgiving heart
That broods on wrongs, and will not let old bitterness depart?
In blazing light your cross reveals the truth we dimly knew:
what trivial debts are owed to us, how great our debt to you!
Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls, and bid resentment cease.
Then, bound to all in bonds of love, our lives will spread your peace.
AMEN

(Poem words by Rosamund E Herklots)