how sweet the sound...

I have come to realize that I am not the kind of person who handles conflict well. When people that I love are at odds with one another I get all tense. I have this "save the world" complex, and although I know that I cannot solve all the problems of the people I care about, it is not always how I feel.

Perhaps my view of forgiveness is incredibly naive. Maybe it's just that I have learned about forgiveness the hard way. There have been people in my life that have done things that they were never going to apologize for, and I had to forgive them anyway. It seems like a lot of people don't realize that forgiveness has nothing to do with the person that you are forgiving: it has everything to do with you. Forgiving someone does mean that you are saying they are right, or what they did was okay; it's saying that you are not going to carry the heavy yolk of resentment any farther.

I had a good friend who I had been close with since Kindergarten. One day in June, her brother took an axe and killed both her and her mother. When I say that I have forgiven him, I do not say that lightly, nor do I mean that I find what he did acceptable in any way. When I say that I forgive David, I mean that I have made a conscious decision to lay down the burden of hate and anger. Forgiveness is about making things right in your own heart. It will not change what happened, it will not change the person that you are forgiving, but it will change you.

I am not perfect. I have held short grudges and said hateful things; however, I always come back to the over-whelming power of grace. How often we forget Matthew 6:14-15: "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." This is something that we hear frequently, and I'm sure most of us could quote it, but as Victor Hugo said: the law of Jesus Christ governs our society, but it does not yet permeate it. We know it our heads, but not yet in our hearts.

I know that it is far more difficult to forgive the person who has hurt someone you love than it is to forgive the person who has hurt you, but ease has never been a mark of forgiveness. It takes work. Sometimes you have to remind yourself everyday that you have forgiven someone. The feeling of peace does not always come right away, but it will come eventually. I am the person that I am today because of the forgiveness I have shown, but more so because of the forgiveness that has been shown to me. None of us deserve grace, which is why we all so desperately need it.