When you can’t forget

"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." - Colossians 3:13

Before Jeffrey Dahmer, the confessed killer of 17 men and boys, was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison, relatives of the victims were allowed to make statements. Each told in detail how his life and the lives of other family members had been affected by what had happened. Every person there had been hurt unalterably by what took place.

A mother started to speak in a calm and deliberate manner but her voice got louder and rose in a crescendo as she cried, "I can never forgive you for what you have done." Raging hysterically, the woman had to be physically restrained by deputies in the court.

Few of us could say to her, "I can understand how you feel," because we have not sustained the loss she bore. Yet I couldn’t help but contrast the attitude of another parent who did understand.

This father, visibly shaken, spoke slowly but resolutely as he talked about the life of his son, one of the young men who had been maliciously murdered. He spoke, weighing every word carefully as he said, "I can never forget what has happened, but I must forgive you. I must go on."

Corrie Ten Boom understood how difficult forgiveness can be. She was one of the victims who was interned in a German concentration camp, yet she wrote, "Forgiveness is not an emotion...Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart."

Forgiveness–this matter of giving up our right to hurt someone because that person hurt us–is never easy. But the individual who can forgive is a lot further down the road to healing and putting his or her life together again than the person who refuses to forgive.

Is forgiveness an emotion or a decision? Was Corrie Ten Boom right: you can forgive if you choose to do so?

It’s a psychological fact: the person who can forgive is healthier and happier than the one who chooses to live with bitterness and hatred. What happens when you can’t forgive?

Result #1. Your health is affected. There is a correlation between sound emotional and physical health and your mental attitude. Repeatedly I’ve noticed in people I’ve worked with a relationship between anger and hatred, and organic problems such as cancer, ulcers, hypertension and high blood pressure. Bitterness is a cancer of the soul that erodes like acid.

Result #2. You live in the past, thinking, "What if this had not happened?" Or, "If only I had done things differently." Accepting the past, no matter how painful it may be, is one of the steps necessary to face the future.

Result #3. Your spiritual life is affected. Jesus put it even more bluntly. "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14, 15).

If you want God’s forgiveness, then forgive your enemies. For no matter how great the wrongdoing that we have experienced, our failure in the sight of God is even greater. If He forgives, then we have no alternative but to learn to do the same.

Friend, forgiveness is never easy. But God can help you to learn to forgive, and when you do, your life will be richer and healthier. - Resource reading: Luke 23:26-34

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