Forgiving even when you can't forget

Forgiving even when you can't forget...

Forgiveness to me is the one and most important commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know how I could breathe if I was holding onto every hurt, from every person, in my life, and trust me, there has been plenty of hurt.

Yet, there are people, some close to me, that seem to wallow in their hurt. They hold onto it as if it were a treasured black pearl, taking it out to roll it around in their fingers, to relish the darkness of it. Some even hanging it around their neck so it never leaves them and is constantly in front of them.
It's like Gollum, and his "Precious", the Ring of Power. He couldn't see that the ring was making him sick and forever changing him from the happy-go-lucky Hobbit that he was, to the mad creature he had become; an animal, suspicious, and vicious.

from The Hobbit: Gollum and his ring

It breaks my heart to see these people who can't forgive! They can't see what it, the un-forgiveness, is doing to them personally. These people are the ones who are always upset, who are never happy, have no patience, yell and scream and gesture in traffic, and are generally unhappy ALL THE TIME.
They have few or no friends because they don't trust anyone. Usually alone, or with a spouse, they become more and more anti-social and what I like to call, "hermits in community."

How did these people reach this point in their lives, we ask? By being offended. Offended by a family member who committed a wrong in their eyes. Offended by a friend who borrows money and never pays it back, and perhaps out of shame, disappears, not to be seen again. Offended by a former spouse who rejects them and never says why or attempts to reconcile. Offended by someone that has the audacity to take a parking space for which they had waited five minutes. 

I consider myself a forgiving person. I get over things quickly and forgive and forget. But I haven't always been this way. I probably have had ulcers and high blood pressure because of the hurt I used to drag around with me. It was mine, and no one was going to take it away from me. 
Then one day, I came to understand that my un-forgiveness and grudges were what was making me sick.

I had read, but never truly understood, Jesus' teaching on forgiveness. In the Lord's Prayer, or the "Our Father" as we Catholics refer to it, He taught us to pray "...and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" or in other translations, " and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our trespassers."
what I never really understood or possibly noticed, was the two verses after the prayer, Matthew 6:14 & 15 "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions."

Jesus is telling us right here, that BELIEVING in Him is not enough, we must also OBEY, his command and forgive others or His Father, God, will NOT, forgive us! In fact the Catechism of the Catholic Church expounds a great deal on this subject, here are two poignant verses:
2840  Now—and this is daunting—this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see.¹³⁶ In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace. (1864)
2843  Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end,¹⁴² become a living reality. The parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord’s teaching on ecclesial communion, ends with these words: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”¹⁴³ It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession. (368)

I realized, my own inability to forgive and forget, was not only making me sick, but was holding me back from achieving Holiness in the Lord! 

The Gospel of Matthew has many chapters of Jesus teaching us to forgive. Matthew 18: 21-35 is the parable of the unforgiving servant. First Peter askes Jesus: 

21 Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

22 Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy times seven.” (Some theologians say that in the times this took place, it was not literally 490 times, but meant an infinite number of times.)

Jesus concludes the story of the servant with this: 34"Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt." 35 "So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

Fourteen years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia Syndrome. One of the biggest factors in how much pain I felt was stress. Stress and un-forgiveness work hand in hand, and I learned in time that the only way I was going to feel better was to take control of my own body, and that meant making changes in my life. I had to change my job, my personality even, to recognize the things that were making me sick. When I did this, I was able to slowly turn my pain off. 
I stopped mulling over old wrongs. I learned to recover from hurt faster, meant forgiving and moving on. It wasn't easy. every time I started to make progress, the evil one would throw me a curve ball and knock me back. 
But I began to see that faith and prayer made me stronger. The more time I spent in prayer, the more time I spent in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the more often I went to Mass, made me stronger in my soul.
 I have to say that the last three years have been the greatest three years in my faith life since I discovered the Lighthouse Catholic Media CD's. I have learned so much about the Bible, about coping with pain and hurt, relationships, my relationship with Jesus and my own self image, that I could not have learned in another twenty or thirty years without them.

I just want everyone to listen to them. the problem is, the persons that are having problems with forgiveness, are the ones who refuse to listen! It's as if they are afraid that if they listen to them, they will lose their "precious" hurt and resentfulness that they have come to love!

One great talk by Jeff Cavins, is called "The Hidden Power of Forgiveness" 

I highly recommend this talk for anyone who is having issues with forgiveness. It is so important that we learn to forgive! After all, Jesus came into this world to pay the price for our sins, so that God might forgive us our sins. Jesus paid the ultimate price. Can we accept His gift? Can we accept His gift and thank Him, for paying our debt, by forgiving the debts owed us? This is His wish and command, to "Love one another", as "He has Loved us!"

Can we say and mean the words that Jesus taught us?

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name! Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory Forever! Amen!

Blessings!

The Catholic Lady©