Tagged: “forgive”

Will forgiveness require some suffering for me to be finished with the suffering of loss and betrayal from the one to whom I gave my commitment?

Yes, the process of forgiveness does require suffering when the injustice is deep. For example, you will need to struggle to see the humanity in the one who was unfair to you. This can be painful as you see, in your mind, the one who hurt you. As you forgive, you will be asked to “bear the pain”—to stand up to the pain—so that you do not toss that pain back to the offending person or to innocent and unsuspecting other people.  Yet, as you bear this pain, the paradox is that it begins to lift. The bottom line is this: The pain suffered on the forgiveness journey is temporary. The pain suffered from the injustice can last a lifetime.

If I forgive, should I expect all of my inner pain to melt away or will there be some residual pain if the injustice against me is profound?

Many people, when treated extremely unfairly, can have some pain, such as residual anger, that stays with them. Yet, the inner unrest, the inner anger, no longer is intense.  As one person said to me,”My anger used to control me, but now I am in control of my anger.” Continuing to forgive, even for years, is not unreasonable when treated cruelly.  Yet, the forgiveness process becomes easier and takes less time as you continue to practice this moral virtue.

About a year ago, I sent an email to someone whom I hurt many years ago. In the email, I asked for forgiveness. I received no response. Should I try again or respect the person’s decision not to respond to me?

We do not know the person’s motivation here. The person might not have received the email or intended to respond and got busy. Given that it has been a year since you sent the email, I recommend that you try again, gently, with no pressure on the person to respond or to accept your request to be forgiven. If the person does not reply, you can go in peace because you have done the best that you are able to do right now and you have had the best of intentions for this person.

How strong must one be to be able to forgive well? I feel like it takes a lot of strength—possibly too much strength—to forgive someone who has treated you terribly. In this case, forgiving almost seems unreasonable. It takes too much for a person to forgive.

This question demonstrates a remarkable level of understanding. As humans, we are prone to being initially excited about starting a new diet, or a new workout regimen, or any other discipline, only to lose interest after a few weeks. It might not require a lot of willpower to forgive one person because the forgiver is concentrated, engaged in something new (and new things tend to capture our attention when they are useful), and are helpful to the one who forgives. Yet, what about the third, fourth, or tenth time someone tries to forgive others? This is where we need what I refer to in the book, The Forgiving Life, as a strong will—the kind of will that perseveres through difficult times. However, we do not have to go through the process of forgiveness—the second, third, and tenth efforts—by ourselves. When we are practicing physical fitness, it helps to have an exercise partner. When it comes to forgiving, and staying at it, try to look for someone who can be a teammate in the forgiving process, someone who supports you. The other person’s strong will can then support and strengthen yours, and vice versa. It takes this kind of will to be physically fit. It takes this kind of will to be forgivingly fit.

One of my friends recently mentioned a strong forgiver, Corrie Ten Boom, from World War II.  What did she do that was so forgiving and, if this was in the context of forgiving the enemy, would this even be appropriate?

Corrie Ten Boom survived a concentration camp during World War II. She wrote a book, The Hiding Place, about her experiences. Following the war, she was in a German church talking about the virtues of forgiveness. After the talk, people came up to greet her. Much to her horror, the SS officer who abused her years ago extended his hand to her, asking for forgiveness. She did not want to grant it. She then said a quick prayer and, as she reports, she felt something like an electrical surge go through her right arm and so she was able both to shake his hand and at the same time to offer a love for this man that surprised even her. Without debating the issue of prayer here, she did experience something that day that was genuine forgiveness and was both sudden and complete. The more you practice forgiveness, the more easily you will be able to practice it in a genuine way, at least at times and for certain circumstances.

The experience of forgiving by Corrie Ten Boom definitely looks legitimate to me. After all, the experience was still with her long after the event as she wrote clearly and passionately about it in her now very popular book. Even if others disagree with her choice to forgive a Nazi officer, this was her own free will choice to do so. Thus, it is an appropriate act of forgiving.