Forgiveness

"Now it is time to forgive him and comfort him.  Otherwise he may become so discouraged that he won't be able to recover.  Now show him that you still love him."  (2 Corinthians 2: 7-8)

When we think about forgiveness we have a mindset of someone who has done wrong coming to us and asking us to forgive him -- this act in itself places us on a one up position over that person.  Yet, the real power that the forgiveness provides lies not in us forgiving those who ask us to forgive them but in us forgiving those who do not ask and more important those who are really hard to forgive.

As we travel through this hard road called life, most of us can quickly recollect many instances where people have hurt us and never repented.  Some of those acts hurt us so much that we hold them inside, and often time they consume our entire life.  We cannot conceive that someone would do us wrong and then not ask us to forgive them.  It pains us, it angers us, it lives in our heart for what seems an eternity, we contemplate revenge, and slowly it ends up being expressed in the many wrong choices we make.

One vivid memory, which I cannot forget, involves my family.  When I was in my early twenties my father was unfaithful to my mom.  She found out and I thought our family would crumble.  My mom being the strong woman that she was determined that she would never divorce my father and brake up her family yet, she would never forgive him for it.  In my father's last hours he called my brother, my mom and me into the room where he was laying and prayed that God would forgive him of all his sins and thanked God for the all He had given him.  He turned to my mom and asked her to forgive him. She looked at him and walked out of the room.  That act destroyed my brother and me, and until this day it consumes her life.

It is only when we pray for a spirit of forgiveness so that we may forgive those who have hurt us-but do not seem to care or repent-that we are liberated from the forces which can torment us as we toil with the many thoughts that follow.  When we forgive those who have hurt us we become Christ like, when He prayed that God would forgive them for they did not know what they were doing, and we are liberated by the greatest expression of love; loving those who are not loveable even at their most unlovable moments.  "Father, forgive these people, because they don't know what they are doing" (Luke 23: 34).

Lord, allow me to love those who hurt me and give me the strength to find a spirit of forgiveness even when they do not show any remorse.

Meditation: Can you think of a time when someone has hurt you and the pain still hunts you today?  If you can, stop right now and forgive them. Remember the old adage: forgiveness is divine.

Jorge L. Valdes, Ph.D.

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