Wednesday, 11 June 2008
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I Feel Like Sweeney Todd: A Lesson on Forgiveness
Last week, after my roommate kicked me out of the shower so she could brush her teeth, I contemplated cutting her TV hour with "Grey's Anatomy" so I could watch something important, like the international news. Thursday night came and went, and while I didn't do anything, I felt just as annoyed. I wonder why it is my plans remain imaginary. Is it because God convicts me to have mercy, or is it because I'm too much of a neurotic wimp to carry them out?
Forgiveness is tied with calculus as the hardest thing for me to learn, much less master. The minute someone seriously hurts me, I begin scheming for a punishment that is two parts creativity and one part pure cruelty. These fantasies usually involve food poisoning, pink slips, and pigeons with abnormally large beaks.
I'll admit that I've taken revenge using less grandiose methods, but no counter-attack is powerful enough to negate the wrongdoing I'd encountered. I feel accomplished, but just as hurt, which makes me consider attacking again and again and again. In the end, I just feel tired.
Do you have a hard time forgiving the people who hurt you?
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Comments (20)
At least youre not as bad as most people.
I once contemplated hanging my ex from a tree by his toes, shooting him with a nail gun, and torching him with a flame thrower..because, let's face it..that would be so cool.
He was..lightly put..a butthead
=)
Forgiveness for others is easy...forgiving myself for the things I have done in my past is difficult. But God forgives.
You know, I've actually thought that sometimes I'm *too* forgiving. One of my friends was supposed to be a groomsman at my wedding. The day before the wedding, he decided that he couldn't be there, because of things that had happened between us several years before. Oh, I was livid. But even at the time it happened, I forgave him and moved on. My wedding day felt a little emptier without him there, but I moved on, and we're finally on speaking terms again. There's only one person in my life that I've had a hard time forgiving, but that's a whole other blog entry in and of itself. :)
Yeah I do but I do it anyway especially when it is one of my friends but if they are not my friend I just basically diss them on the internet or just say screw you and don't talk to them
YES. I can always forgive, but I never forget. It's a curse.
I'm usually a very good forgiver but I will admit that there are a few places where I do struggle. More often than not, an offense is forgiven without batting an eye.
Holding a grudge or revenge take way too much time and energy which I could more effectively apply to something else entirely.
On those places I struggle, I pray to ask Heavenly Father to help me to let go my hurt feelings...most subside eventually.
"Forgiveness is tied with calculus as the hardest thing for me to learn, much less master."
hahaha this made me laugh. although i know your entry's not meant to be entirely funny.
anyway, i'm with you on this one. forgiveness is HARD. i don't do the revenge thing, but i just write ppl off in my mind and never care for them again. which in some ways, i think, is worse. i mean, who does that?!
anyway, good post. *high five!*
I have struggled with unforgiveness. But once I realized that my unforgiveness of others hampered my relationship with God, I made my mind to let go of hurts their grudges. Not easy, but so freeing. Sin keeps us from the Father. And unforgiveness makes us uneligible for our forgiveness by God bought at the cross with Jesus' blood.
God is gracious to give us time to work it out, but we must want to work it out, want to forgive as He forgives us. Some people will hate us for it, but as the saying goes, "To err is human, to forgive is divine." Forgiving is one of the many ways we become like Jesus.
As God to help you, and you will find your anger and resentment will begin to wash away.
i felt like i needed to purge myself after watching some of this movie.
I do have a hard time forgiving people...
Forgiveness doesn't mean that something wrong was ok, or that there shouldn't be consequences for wrongdoing. I think that we get confused and feel that they must go hand-in-hand.
Ever since I was little, I would say
I have to agree with roamingchile@xanga, forgiveness is not an option in Christ's eyes. We must forgive or at least work at it wholeheartedly.
I've grown up in foster care, and it is definitely heart breaking to see the girls and boys who have had injustice after injustice placed upon them. Whether is sexual or physical abuse, neglect, apathy or whatever... they are so broken, and when you talk about forgiveness they feel as though forgiving is the act of making what happened to them okay. I tell them that without forgiveness they are giving those traitors an outlet for continuous power over them. The power to make them feel miniscule, hurt, angry.
Forgiveness can be really really hard, I myself "think" I have forgiven a person from the past, but when I see her or pictures of her my blood boils and I want nothing more to slash into her with words of anger and hurt. (of course I don't think I've been praying about it as I should either)...
Revenge has a worldly/human quality to it, and it is just another example of how broken and out of shalom we are. its a shame that we have this mentality where we think we need to pay back those who have hurt us, but its a blessing that God meets us and takes us as we are.
Sometimes! You should have seen the horrible things I was thinking about the Dental Clinic in University Hospital, hand grenade was the revenge. Then I started thinking about what GOD'S powerful love, and forgiveness I started feeling bad about what I wanted to do to them. I started forgiving them from my mouth, in my heart and in my prayers. All of this is because I had two molars that needed to be removed and the dentist only took out one and didn't give me any prescrib for antibotics (who cares about the painkillers, which by the way I didn't get either), and from April 22 (first molar got removed) to June 9 (second molar removed), I was in lots of pain. I required unwanted painkillers and later on some antibotics which I needed for infection from the first time I went.
Thank GOD for being the HEALER that HE is! HE was the one who kept the pain away and the infection down, because it could have been worse. I forgive them and will keep forgiving them and forgetting them (everyday) everytime this pops up, because it can be hard to do so but I believe that "I can do all things through CHRIST that strengthens me".
Now, their gone out my mind.
Have a wonderful day!
Della
I actually find that it's the smaller things that are harder to forgive. I know if my roommate tried to tell me to get out of the shower so she could brush her teeth, I would have told her that she could kindly wait ten more minutes because her teeth were not going to fall out of her head at that moment.
I stew over small things. I get to work right away on forgiving big things. Backwards, I know.
I have a hard time with stewing over things in my heart, too. I know I'm not really forgiving someone if every time something happens I feel like bringing up everything else they do that irks me. It's really not as easy as some people think it is, to forgive, to truly forgive, the way that God forgives us...but I think about all the crap I do against God and I realize I'm a huge jerk!
Just keep saying I forgive *person's name* because God has forgiven me much until you have completely let go. That's what confession does
I can forgive...but it doesn't mean I have to continue to be their friend. I refuse to be a door mat to some and I don't think Christ wanted us to either. I forgive, forget and move on.
Compared to most people, I tend to find it harder to forgive than forget. I had a friend that continually hurt me over the years and I took it and never fought back. Unfortunately, that person and I are not friends and sadly I don't think I can ever trust her enough to be that close again. It took me about a year to forgive her but I find it harder to forget. I'd always be thinking of ways to make her feel the same way she'd hurt me but in the end it was pointless because it couldn't remove the pain that I had endured.