Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. It involves only one person, yourself. It has taken me 32 years to understand this concept. I think my idea of forgiveness was that it was necessary for the benefit of another person, not necessarily for me. I thought forgiveness was important to get things moving back to normal as quickly as possible without taking the time to make changes in myself. I didn’t think of it as a way to release my own personal hatred, bitterness and other negative poisons that I have harbored. Those poisons took root and eventually became strongholds in my life, holding me back from becoming my absolute best and reaching my full potential. I would say out load (and to myself for that matter) that I forgave another person, but not make those internal changes to reflect a different attitude or behavior. I just continued to hold judgment and essentially paid lip service. I never truly accepted the gift of forgiveness for myself or moved toward compassion with the offender.

Other misconceptions of forgiveness I have believed include not comprehending that forgiveness is a process and that it is not something that occurs overnight. It can be a difficult journey and it may take a long time. I also thought that I would never be able to go on with life unless the offender offers an apology. I now see that this isn’t necessary and this belief is only delaying the forgiveness process. When someone wronged me in the past, I believed that the offender did this intentionally. I thought they did this on purpose and “What kind of a person hurts people knowingly?” I would ask myself. Again, this is very naive thinking and I now know that people can hurt others unintentionally. They may not even realize that they have hurt someone else. This has also helped me to see that I have hurt people unintentionally also. So now, who am I to judge?

Learning about forgiveness has also been important for me to understand that someone may have offended me unknowingly and I may have taken action to hurt them back. Now, both of us have to forgive each other. I see where I can be both the offended and the offender at the same time.

Forgiveness does not mean that you will reconcile with another person. I have always thought that this was true in order for forgiveness to occur and be genuine. That is probably why I just wanted to get things back to normal with a person I offended or was offended by as quickly as possible and move on with life. I thought that reconciliation was showing forgiveness, but in reality it was just sweeping the issue under the rug and trying to forget about it. I now know that change in the offender needs to occur before the offended person is able to reconcile with them. It would be unhealthy to send a person back into an abusive relationship unless the offender showed repentance, remorse and change. Trust needs to be available before an offended person can enter into the relationship again.

Forgiveness is not forgetting either. I don’t know how many bible studies I have been in where the leader tells us to “forgive and forget”. Of course, I have always listened to their “wisdom” and thought this was true. Forgetting seems to imply that you are pardoning or letting the other person off the hook. In a sense, it could mean protecting the person or covering up their wronged action. I have done this in the past and now it’s clear why it may not be in the offended or offenders best interest. The offender may never learn consequences and be given the opportunity to change their behavior. The offended may use this as a way to avoid the problem and not learn and grow from it personally.

If a person truly forgives and internally releases all anger and hatred, they will not increase in sensitivity to betrayals in the future. I think I thought a person who was betrayed once would continue to see future betrayals as worse or exaggerate it more every time it occurs. I’m sure I thought this was true because I never really forgave and released all internal anger and resentment, thus viewing future hurts as more and more painful. True forgiveness allows a person to grow in strength and courage to keep practicing forgiveness in the future resulting in the decrease of sensitivity to wrongs done to them. This is truly an amazing gift that is available to us if we learn to accept it and use it!

Life is a journey, and so is forgiveness. Come along for the ride...