Why should I forgive you?

“Name one good reason why I should forgive you!”

Have you ever said that to someone after you’ve been wronged?

How quick are you to list the reasons why that person doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, and (once you get going on it) how easily does your list of grievances grow?

“You’re insensitive. You’re an idiot. You’re heartless. You’re cruel!”

These reasons can feel quite compelling in the moment of discovering the wrongdoing. Forgiveness can rightly feel far from our minds.

Until we realize that, as time passes, we still feel hurt by the situation. Until we can see that our grudges can hold us hostage to our past.

I think the trick to forgiving sooner is to remember that the reasons for forgiving can be far more compelling than the reasons we use to justify our grudges.

Here are a few of them (borrowed from the International Forgiveness Institute)

• To feel better

• To repair a relationship

• To grow in character

• To help the one who hurt you

• To show your children or others who are important to you, that forgiveness is important

• To help make the situation better by reducing conflict and being a force for peace

• To exercise goodness as an end to a conversation

• To honor a religious tradition that values forgiving those that do wrong against you just as you seek forgiveness for wronging others

When you are compelled to forgive through one or more of these reasons, the satisfaction is sustaining, and you contribute to the greater good.

Name-calling becomes acknowledging - “You’re a human. I’m a human. We can be better. I can be good.” The pain lessens a little, and peace with the past can settle in.

Forgiveness is a good thing, and there are many reasons why.

Love,

Molly