02/03/2022
Hey y’all still with me? Let’s continue our forgiveness journey! The second phase, called the commitment to forgive, includes understanding what forgiveness is and is not.
Forgiveness is a moral virtue just like justice, patience, and kindness. In this phase you offer benevolence to the wrong doer. You can’t do this with the expectation that you will receive an apology or even that the wrong doer will express remorse.
This is more so about you committing to forgive, not that they deserve to be forgiven, but more so because you deserve to be free. Holding onto or harboring unforgiveness or resentment causes you harm not the person who did you wrong. If it increases your anxiety, your stress, and causes you to feel anger or frustration, this is harmful to your very being; and each time you experience any of the aforementioned, you do so at the expense of YOU now harming YOU!
When you commit to forgive you offer the wrong doer compassion, understanding, and as a later development, even love.
To forgive is not to condone, forget, or reconcile because none of these are moral virtues. One can forgive without reconciling!
In your journal tonight reflect on what this might mean for you. How can you possibly show compassion, understanding, and love to someone who has hurt you? Hasn’t apologized? And shows no remorse? Guess what its possible and you deserve to be free.