While many things that others have done to us can be impossible to forget, they are not impossible to forgive.

To "forget" that something traumatic has happened is to live in denial, and to say in essence that it never happened. But forgiveness is a very different thing. The beneficiary of your forgiveness, first and foremost, will always be you.

By the same token, the one person who is guaranteed to always suffer from your unwillingness to forgive will, again, be you. So you see that, in reality, forgiveness has little to do with the other person, and everything to do with you.

To forgive someone does not mean that we must walk up to them and say "I forgive you." They need never even know--which is a good thing, as they are often dead by the time we're ready to forgive them.

Forgiveness is a private act, a conscious choice, based on the awareness that we ourselves have been the one suffering because of the absence of our forgiveness. To forgive is to say,

"OK, I have been hauling this burden around long enough, and I have paid a high enough price already. This wasn't rightly my burden in the first place, and I only picked it up because I didn't know I had a choice. Now, at last, I see that I do have a choice, nay, an obligation -- to myself -- to lay down this wearisome burden. I owe it to myself to release once and for all what never should have been mine in the first place and, by heaven, shall never again burden my shoulders. I deserve better! And now I'm going to get it!"

Once we really "get' this, it becomes just a matter of time until we are willing to forgive anyone for anything. Really.

So, knowing this, the question becomes not, "Shall I forgive?" but "How soon shall I forgive?"

Following this logic to its natural conclusion, the next question is, "Since I now know that I will eventually forgive this person, why wait?"

Unforgiveness always creates suffering. My lack of forgiveness creates suffering in me -- and I'm no longer into that. My waiting to forgive merely prolongs my suffering. 

There is no such thing as "waiting until the time is right." The time is now. So I'll just do my forgiving now. Right now.

As Jesus said, "There. It is done."

          Peace be with you,

            "Dr. Frank"

         Dr. Frank B. Smoot, MA, DD

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