Day 14 – A barrier to forgiveness?

On this Friday I’d like to take a look back on the journey so far. This is the end of 3 of 4 weeks of writing about forgiveness.

To be honest, I didn’t have a road map for this journey… I just knew that it was the right time to start it.

And even though I made a few mistakes, I think overall it’s been very enlightening and useful. I can’t believe the number of comments on the website or email replies I’ve been getting. Thank you all so much, it’s really helpful when you go through things to know that others have gone through them as well.

So much of what I’ve written is a way of trying to answer the question, what goes wrong when we can’t forgive?

I’ve very conscious of the “should do” aspect of forgiveness. But I’m also trying to be honest about real feelings. So much of the time I feel like people who have been through something they just can’t forgive are told to forgive anyways. That God won’t forgive them if they don’t forgive first. And while these comments are true, they provide no means or help to go forward.

Also, forgiveness seems to be a journey, not a once and done event. It’s definitely more complicated that a simple “I forgive” moment.

Again, in all of this I’m speaking of “Hard Forgiveness”.

It’s like at some point there’s some kind of barrier to forgiveness. A continuum from easy to hard that when you cross a line, the whole equation shifts. I tried to illustrate that in a diagram, which resonated with some and not with others.

But as a person who normally doesn’t hold a grudge that line became shockingly real once I crossed it and couldn’t get back. Maybe I didn’t want to, which was disconcerting too, in it’s own way.

Some of your comments also took into consideration the willingness of the other party to admit to their wrongs, or to at least work on the problem… or not. And whether or not the situation continues, that’s certainly a factor.

There’s more to uncover here.

I’ll do my best next week.

Thanks for your participation.