forgiveness is a strange creature

Forgiveness is the mental, and/or spiritual process of ceasing to feel resentment, indignation or anger against another person for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. (Wikipedia)

“As far as the east us from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” (William Blake)

i’ve been wondering about forgiveness lately, i thought i had it all figured out. that our love is a direct correlative of the forgiveness that we give. that when God forgives us, he throws our sins into the depths of the ocean and forgets about them. and that’s how i should forgive.

but recent events in my life have been teaching me about what it really takes to forgive and i realize that i haven’t made much sense of forgiveness after all– at least, if you judge from how i’m dishing it out. so this post is not so much a post– but more of mental ramble as i try to make sense of how to forgive.

every time i talk to my ex online (i still can’t talk to him when i see him in person though), i still wonder whether or not i’ve really forgiven him. because even as i say and know that i am ok and have moved on, everything about him still reminds me of the hurt he had caused me. and i always have to bring it up somewhere in the conversation– how he had hurt me while we were together, that he wasn’t really good to me. everytime i do that, i wonder about the forgiveness that i profess to have given to him several months before.

isn’t forgiveness supposed to be like nothing had happened before? forgive and forget, and all that? i thought i could do it, really… heck, i even approved of his friend request here in multiply– only to find that it’s really strange for me to see notices about his impending marriage and of his honeymoon in palawan. so, i had to remove him from the list– because it’s really crazy!

so anyway. forgiveness is a strange creature. i still haven’t figured it out. forgiveness is supposed to be not holding the offense against the forgiven anymore, but every thing i’ve been doing– from being nice to him and his fiancee, to saying that i’m ok– is always in reaction to the prior offenses he had done to me. so now i don’t know if i had forgiven him or not. but i’m no longer mad at him, that’s for sure, and for some strange reason (and only by God’s grace) am i able to honestly say that i’m happy they’re getting married.

i read somewhere that it is not true that God forgets our sins once they have been forgiven– because what if He suddenly remembers?! “Only imperfection forgets, but God is perfect.” the pastor then reads Hebrews 8:12, “Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Will remember no more–it’s really a promise to not to let prior offenses be relevant anymore. A promise that’s a lot more reassuring than forgetfulness.

come to think of it, even if we are no longer under the law– where one has to burn a sacrificial offering for forgiveness– but under grace, the price of the offense still has to be paid, but no longer by the perpetrator, but the one who has to forgive. just as Christ had to die for the atonement of our sins, forgiveness requires a sacrifice from the one who is wronged for the one who needs to be forgiven.

i know i’m walking down a tricky line here. but i just realized that in forgiving somebody, we lay down on the altar our pride– to give up the retribution that we are entitled to, to forfeit the payment of the amount we are owed, to give up the eye for the eye, and the tooth for a tooth. it is to recognize that we have been forgiven for our crimes too, that we no longer have to pay the price for our transgressions because someone else has paid for it. We are not treated as our sins deserve. so we give out what we have been given.

and in forgiving, we are set free– from our pride, seething anger, festering hurt– and can now have a good night’s sleep.

as for me, it’s nearly three in the morning, and i’m dizzy from the nosebleed i got while driving home. but yeah. forgiveness… looks like i still need a lot of practice at it, i can think and write about this all i want, but it’s never gonna be real unless i do it. and i need to sleep already…

so yeah. here goes, one day at a time.