On Forgiveness -
And Why I Could Not Do It From a Distance
A few months ago I was talking with my daughter about a difficult situation - a friendship of over forty years that had ended badly. A significant betrayal. Real financial loss. And my handling of it, which I had always justified as righteous and honest.
My daughter listened. Then she said, gently but without softening, that I could have handled it differently. Not that I was wrong. That I had choices, and I was responsible for the choice I made and its consequences.
I wanted to defend myself. She would not hear it. She just kept returning to the same point: I had choices.
Seven years had passed since the betrayal was discovered. Nothing had changed on the other person’s end. I was still out a significant amount of money. I had received no explanation. I had been vilified for bringing the situation to light. The circumstances were exactly as they had been.
What had changed was me.
I had the heartfelt desire to forgive her. Not because the circumstances had improved. Not because I had received an apology. But because I was ready to put it down.
I had been praying the Lord’s Prayer for years without fully registering what it asks of us. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. That is not a request. It is a condition. When I finally sat with that honestly, I understood that forgiveness is not optional if I want to be forgiven myself.
Here is the harder admission. I told myself I was willing to write a letter not just of forgiveness but an apology for even accusing her. I was even willing to take the accusation and the judgment off the table. (Even in the face of undeniable evidence to the contrary) But as I wrote this, I realized I was not willing to see her again, because that would put my forgiveness to the test. And that told me everything I needed to know about how complete my forgiveness actually was.
Real forgiveness has to be delivered in person. That realization brought me to tears.
I share this because the people who come to me are almost always carrying something they have not forgiven - someone else, a circumstance, or themselves. The body carries what the heart refuses to put down. That is not metaphor; that is physiology.
We all make the best choices we can at the time with the resources we have. The people who wrong us do so from a background we do not fully know. We judge their actions through our own experiences, our own knowledge, our own pain - not theirs.
Start with the easier things. Realize you have the power of choice. Build the inner quiet that gives you time to consider your options before you react. Each time you make a more forgiving choice, notice what it does to you. There is a kind of power in it that resentment cannot produce.
Forgiveness is a lifelong practice. But it begins with one thing you are holding and willing to put down. Don’t be concerned about choosing the right one - are all the right one.
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