Forgiveness

I am preparing for what I will discuss tomorrow. I prepare, partially, by thinking about the subject I want to discuss and the point that I wish to make. I read as much news as I can to find examples. One subject matter I have been considering is forgiveness. A real tricky thing to describe.

I had a song on my mind by Don Henley of the Eagles called "Forgiveness". I searched on YouTube and came across this video. "Venia (Forgiveness)". The word venia can be used to mean forgiveness, grace and other such things. The video tells the story of a young lady who was killed in the Virginia Tech shootings, her name was Mary Karen Read. Her last writings in her journal were, “When deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive… Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”

We tend to get angry with people when they either prevent us from getting what we want or intentionally do something to harm us. Once we perceive harm to us we then foster anger at the other person. The emotion is completely within us, it does not impact the other person unless we return the harm. The harm the anger does is really towards ourselves.

Here is the odd thing about it, if someone harms me and I forgive them, the one who benefits is me. In fact, if I forgive someone they may not even know it and believe that I am still angry with them. Someone harmed me very badly and I told them that I forgave them, they told me that they did not want any of my so called forgiveness. Heck, I will take all the forgiveness I can get.

Forgiveness does not come all at once, we have to accept that what has happened has happened and that we cannot undo it. The next step is to just let it go, that gets easier over time. The trick is to look forward rather than look back, the trick is to be headed somewhere.

I don't know how you have been hurt and I don't need to. I can tell you this, when you are lying on your deathbed, how do you want to go out? Last week I was talking to someone who has made a very big mistake in his life and there will be penalties for it. Like most people, his first thought was that he would never make the same mistake again, I asked him to think about where he was going because if you are not headed to a better place then you will go back to the old place.

We should learn from our past and consider it; but, you have to be more concerned about where you are going, what you want your life to mean. I have learned so much in the last four years as a result of betrayals that were done to me. I don't have the time to think about much of what is past as I am building my life and am focused on where I want to go, what the rest of my life will mean. I would much rather it be about love than about loss and those are the choices we all have. Be well.