Showing posts with label forgive and forget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forgive and forget. Show all posts

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Forgive and forget? Why forgiveness is not always necessary

There's so much talk about forgiveness these days, with some suggesting that, without forgiveness, a relationship doesn't have a future.
I beg to differ.
Forgiveness means different things to different people. What it doesn't suggest on any level is that the betrayal was "okay". Janis Abrams Spring, author of How Can I Forgive, calls that "cheap forgiveness."
For me, forgiveness means letting go of resentment...but it also means a little bit more than that. Something I just can't quite define, but perhaps resembles a lifting of the spirit.
I have days – most days, in fact – when I'm sure that I've let go of all resentment. But now and again, something will happen – say, my husband forgets to pick up my favorite ice cream flavor, but remembers to buy his own fave. In an instant, my eyes narrow, my lips purse and a nasty little voice hisses something along the lines of "it's not enough that he cheated, exposed you to god-knows-what diseases and lied about it but HE CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER TO BUY YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM, that bastard!" And I wonder if I know anything about forgiveness.
For now, I'll settle for acceptance. That my past is immutable, though I can learn from it. That my present is unfolding minute by minute. And that I can create a future in which I just might grasp what genuine forgiveness truly is.

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