Our Forgiveness Blog
Barriers to Forgiveness, Part 9: Impatience
Patience. To forgive requires much patience because we cannot rush the process; we cannot will the end of the pain; we cannot automatically change the one who hurt us. Patience with perseverance…..and an acceptance of the suffering are keys.
When we have impatience with the forgiveness process we are misunderstanding what the process is. It unfolds. We do not rush through it. I have come to realize that this unfolding, this waiting for relief from the suffering, is a time of strengthening. It is a time of learning a greater humility. We are not the ones who always are in control.
In the waiting comes wisdom. We learn more about ourselves and our ability to endure even when there is great pain. We learn who other people are. They can hurt us, but ultimately they cannot destroy us from our inside because we see our own strength developing. Out of waiting comes a stretching of our patience and a shrinking of our impatience. Out of waiting comes growth as persons.
Robert
Is Forgiveness a Sign of Weakness?
“Many people are hesitant, even afraid, to forgive because they fear that the other will take advantage of them. Forgiveness is for wimps, I have heard many times. Yet, is that true? Is the offer of goodness, true goodness, extended from a position of your own pain, ever done in weakness? How can one offer goodness through a position of pain and see it as weak? And see the giver of this goodness as weak? My point is this: We all may need to delve more deeply into what forgiveness is so that we can make the best decisions possible for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the ones who hurt us.”
Excerpt from Chapter 3 of The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love
by Dr. Robert Enright.
On Bearing the Pain
One of the paradoxes of forgiveness is that as we give mercy to those who showed no mercy to us, we are doing moral good. Another paradox is this: As we bear the pain of the injustice, that pain does not crush us but instead strengthens us and helps us to heal emotionally.
When we bear the pain of what happened to us, we are not absorbing depression or anger or anxiety. Instead we realize that we have been treated unfairly—-it did happen. We do not run from that and we do not try to hurriedly cast off the emotional pain that is now ours. We quietly live with that pain so that we do not toss it back to the one who hurt us (because we are having mercy on that person). We live with that pain so that we do not displace the anger onto others who were not even part of the injustice (our children or co-workers, for example).
When we bear the pain we begin to see that we are strong, stronger actually than the offense and original pain. We can stand with the pain and in so doing become conduits of good for others.
Today, let us acknowledge our pain and practice a paradox: Let us quietly bear that pain and then watch it lift.
Robert
Our Approach to Anti-Bullying
So many schools see bullying as a behavior in need of being stopped. We disagree.
We are not disagreeing because that first sentence here is wrong. We are disagreeing because that first sentence is incomplete.
If our primary task is to stop bullying behavior, we fail to look more deeply into the human heart. Those who bully have a story to tell and in the vast majority of cases, those who bully have been bullied….by someone…..at some time. And the angers are unseen and unattended by others. Those who bully usually suffer in silence and the more this happens, the more the rage inside builds, spilling over to innocent others who now are the recipients of that rage.
As we fail to understand this, and as we continue to try restraining the bullying behavior without seeing and acknowledging the wounds in those who bully, we fail to address the situation properly. Thus, there are attacks and wounds and cycles that seem never to end.
As we restrain bullying behavior, we have an obligation to see the wounds within those who bully…and to try to help them bind up those wounds through forgiving.
As we fail to see this, we are not stopping bullying. Instead, we are inadvertently allowing a wounded heart to become a resentful heart which becomes a heart that wants to hurt others….no matter how much we try to constrain this. We need forgiveness education for those who bully……now. In our Store section is an anti-bullying curriculum that provides this broader perspective on a world-wide problem. Take a look. Your actions in helping those who bully could save lives.
Robert
Seeing Beyond the Tears
Sometimes when we are caught up in grief and anger, it seems like this is all there will ever be now in our life.
Permanent tears. Permanent anger.
Yet, please take a look at two different times in your life in which you were steeped in heartache or rage. The tears came…..and they left.
Today it may seem like these will never end…..but they will.
Take a lesson from your own past. The pains were temporary.
They are temporary even now.
Forgiveness helps them to be temporary.
Robert
