In chapter 10 of your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you say this: “Knowing how to forgive is also preparation for the injuries and pain that will come in the future.” That seems kind of pessimistic. Should I be living my life, always looking over my shoulder, trying to find the next person who will treat me cruelly?
The point of the sentence is this: We are in a fallen world in which people are not always at their best. Because of this, our being treated unjustly by others is to be expected, and so we should be prepared for that. We have to be temperate (balanced, not extreme) on this so that, as you say, we are not constantly looking over our shoulders for the next injustice. Yet, we do not want to be intemperate in the other direction either. In other words, we do not want to deny the realities of this world, so we need to be prepared for injustices that likely will come. If we do not learn to forgive, we may be defenseless when faced with deep resentment. How do we get rid of it? If we have no clue, this gives others who treat us badly too much power over our wounded hearts. If, instead, we realistically and temperately learn to forgive, then we are ready to do the work of reducing that resentment when the injustices against us come and are serious.
