Forgiveness: What It Is
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis B. Smedes)
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
This is my final blog in this series on forgiveness. If you missed the first one, click here to read it. Click here for the second post.
Today I want to talk about what forgiveness is. And it’s pretty exciting, because it should help you realize forgiving is something you want to and can do.
Forgiveness is releasing my hope for a better past. A lot of our inability to forgive stems from always thinking about what could have been, what should have been. But part of forgiveness is finally accepting, “This is what happened. And I can’t change that. I wish I could, but I can’t. And I’ll never be able to. And so, I need to release my hope for a better past. The past I got is the past I have.” We need to do this not only because we can’t change the past, but because if we continue to hold on to this bitterness about what happened and this feeling of, “Why couldn’t it have been different?” it can ruin our future. When I forgive, I am releasing my hope for a better past.
Forgiveness is an action, not a feeling. If you’re anything like me, your emotions are ever-changing and often fickle. Often, people wait to forgive until they “feel forgiving,” but those feelings may never come. That’s why forgiveness can’t be based on feelings, it must be a decision.
Forgiveness is releasing my right to retaliate. Romans 12:17 says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” This is really difficult. It’s not natural to release my right to retaliate. Forgiving is an unnatural act. It goes against our instincts. And it’s unfair. It’s unfair to be expected to forgive someone who has wronged you. Forgiveness is unfair, but that’s how God treated us. Not with fairness, but with grace. Grace means to give someone the opposite of what they deserve. Jesus forgave us for how we’ve wronged God, for our sin. And He did it without us asking him to, without us making up for our wrongs first. We need to give that same grace to others.
That’s how we forgive. We realize God has offered us forgiveness, even though we didn’t deserve it – and so we decide to treat others in the same way God treated us.
Forgiveness releases the power of Jesus into my life. I’ll be honest, I like the idea of forgiving, but often I can’t muster up that kind of strength on my own. I need God’s help. And, because He loves us so much, God offers to release His power into our lives to help us when we make the decision to forgive.
Forgiveness is deciding to release a prisoner, and then realizing the prisoner was actually me. You may have read all this and thought, OK, I understand what forgiveness is, but I still don’t understand why. Why would I want to forgive? It’s because God doesn’t ask us to forgive to heal the other person. He asks us to forgive to heal ourselves. Unforgiveness is a cancer that messes with us emotionally, mentally, and even physically. All kinds of studies have proven this. It’s been said that not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting for the rat to die. But the rat doesn’t die. You do. You not forgiving isn’t damaging the other person; it’s damaging you. And forgiving that person won’t set them free; it will set you free.
With God’s help, you can forgive. When you do, you will be free.
Here are some books on forgiveness I’d recommend:
Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again by Lysa TerKeurst.
Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve by Lewis B. Smedes.
The Gift of Forgiveness by Katherine Schwarzenegger.
Getting Rid Of The Gorilla: Confessions on the Struggle to Forgive by Brian Jones.
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu.
If you need help processing your pain and taking the journey of forgiveness, please call the Renewing Life Center at 702-434-7290 or click here to schedule an appointment. We are here for you!
Jennifer Antonucci, M.A., LMFT, LCADC