What Do You Do When You Find It So Difficult To Forgive?
Is it still possible to find peace and healing?
Preaching about forgiveness is so easy for as long as you don’t have anything to forgive.
Yes, I’ve done that. I wrote about forgiveness many times without realizing how hard it is once I’m the one who’s offended. It is even harder to accomplish if the ones hurt are the people that I love.
Why is it so hard to forgive?
1. You can’t see the sense of what’s been done to you
It just seems beyond logic to comprehend why someone would do such a thing, especially to innocent people.
What could be the reason he’s done this or that? What could he have benefited from hurting other people? Couldn’t he have chosen another way instead of choosing what’s harmful to others?
But no matter how hard you may try to think about it, you just won’t get it. There are many senseless things that people do. Things that people never thought about deeply. Things that could have been avoided.
2. It seems so unfair
It’s so hard to forgive because it feels that some offense has been done against justice. It’s just not fair at all! And somewhere deep within us, there is a voice that could never agree with what has been done.
It isn’t right. It shouldn’t have been done. There is a debt that’s been made. And we want to be recompensed for all the hurt and damage made against us.
3. It changes the way you see the other person
When someone hurts you in such a painful way, it changes the way you see that person. All the good things that person has done so far seem to vanish before your eyes.
How could he have done this to me? Does he not love me? Was I not worthy of respect in his eyes?
It’s not easy to forgive because we don’t know how we could ever go back to the way we saw the other person.
What do we do with our hurts?
When you’ve been hurt so much, you feel as though a terrible burden has just been cast into your heart. You feel angry. You feel attacked. But the more you think about it, the deeper your hurt becomes.
What you really need is to be free from that hurt. What you need is healing. And no matter how difficult it may sound, the way to healing is still forgiveness.
How do you forgive?
To forgive, we are not expected to totally forget. But we must somehow let go of it and seek for answers elsewhere.
Here are some of the things we can do to begin the process of forgiveness:
1. Accept your loss
You must admit that you may never get back from the person who hurt you the proper recompense you need and deserve. You need to let go of your right. Not that you won’t seek justice anymore. But you must begin to accept the fact that your offender may not be the same person to give you peace.
2. Find your healing somewhere else
Try to find a different source of healing for your hurts. It could include the company of other people who understand and love you. It can be the kind of person you can change into for the better. A wiser and stronger person.
And of course, there is God who is your Friend, Healer and Savior. He is your strength and your hope. In Him, you can find consolation, justice and truth.
3. Try to see the weakness beyond the offense
Many people don’t want to hurt others intentionally. But we are often weak, and we are vulnerable to misunderstanding, insecurities and fear.
We may not always know each other’s vulnerabilities but we can give each other compassion.
Final Words
Forgiveness is a process that is sometimes long and difficult. But forgiveness is in the end a decision we must make for our freedom, healing and peace. It may not be easy, but it is possible. Strive to look for strength, compassion and hope where they can be found.
Jocelyn Soriano is the author of “Mend My Broken Heart”.
Mend My Broken Heart
Get the book from Amazon today — click here
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“No matter how much we want to, there is no magic formula in healing a broken heart. There is no time-frame also. What we need is to know that our suffering is not meaningless, that the love we have given was never wasted, and that somewhere beyond all our pain, there is hope, hope that could help us endure the hurt we’re going through.”
About the Creator
Jocleyn Soriano
Writer. Poet. Inspirer! Author of Poems of Love and Letting Go.
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