More journey than event

When I write about forgiveness I am constrained to consider my own relationship with it.  That is, how am I following my own understandings?  Am I preaching to others while failing to follow myself?  Although this is often an uncomfortable internal conversation, it almost always proves to be a valuable one.

My most recent reflection on the subject led to this:  forgiveness is more journey than it is event.

I believe that it is rare that true or pure forgiveness occurs - complete and full blown - in a particular moment.  It is rare that one can confess and ask for forgiveness while the other receives the confession and offers complete forgiveness all in one moment.  It is rare that you can put a time and a place on a forgiveness event.

Rather, what we thought was forgiveness in the beginning doesn't really mature until time has passed and we have tested out our supposed forgiveness in many different situations.  As we journey down this road called forgiveness we recognize those by-ways where we get stuck, where old attitudes rise up and we re-act rather than respond to the other.  When we think back, we can remember the time and place of the original hurt, and it still hurts; it still matters and we realize that our forgiveness is still a work in progress.

Furthermore, the wounds that we cause one another are not interchangeable.  Some hurt more.  Some have longer term consequences.  Some hurts are inflicted on those we love rather than directly on us.  I might forgive you crashing my car a lot more quickly than if you had an affair with my husband.  I might forgive you undermining me at work more quickly than I would intentional lies to a potential employer which costs me a job.  I might forgive your demands for greater alimony much more easily than I will forgive the abandonment of our child.

Some stuff is REALLY hard to forgive because it was REALLY hurtful and the hurt is too big to swallow, and in truth, will never be forgotten.  So instead, we begin the journey of forgiveness.  We take just one step forward, perhaps we simply commit to eliminating negative comments about the other.  One step.  When we have mastered that one step, we try the next.  Then the next.  Then the next.

Don't fool yourself.  The steps count.  They move you towards a place which is more healthy for you and your soul; it is more healthy for the community around you, and in time, it will prove more healthy for the (not completely) forgiven other party.  When anger and resentment and jealousy are removed from the equation, however slowly, the world is a better place.

Forgiveness increases the grace quotient in the world, and that, my friends, is never a bad thing.