My Thoughts on Forgiveness

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Forgiveness Is:
#My Thoughts of Forgiveness

Is it possible to forgive a wrong done to someone else? Should only those who repent be forgiven?
Is forgiveness a selfish act, a way to make ourselves feel better? To forgive is to set yourself free, to acknowledge that it does no good to hate. Hate really destroys both the other person and yourself. That realization is what I think taught me about forgiveness, and so I try my best to live by it. I think forgiveness is an aspect of our humanity. I think many of us are brought up to believe that if we don’t somehow forgive, whatever it is that’s ailing, troubling, angering, enraging or shaming us, or getting us in any way worked up, is going to live longer without forgiveness, whether it’s ourselves or others we’re forgiving.
We see it effects us in our communities as well: when warring gangs call for a cease-fire after years of senseless killings; when a spouse accepts into his or her home, a marriage partner who has repented from unfaithfulness; when a former addict becomes sober, makes amends, and is fully restored to family and community. Each time we witness an act of forgiveness, we marvel at its power to heal, to break a seemingly unending cycle of pain. Forgiveness is something virtually all Americans aspire to. Following September 11, 2001, Palestinian and Israeli officials issued orders to pull back from aggression and violence. The world is witnessing astonishing acts of forgiveness and of seeking forgiveness. Forgiveness is the key that can unshackle us from a past that will not rest in the grave of things over and done with. As long as our minds are captive to the memory of having been wrong, then we are not free to wish for reconciliation with the one who wronged us.
Forgiveness is empathy. I believe it means, putting ones self in the position of the other person, and wiping away any sort of resentment and antagonism we feel toward them. Forgiveness is a journey to freedom. Forgiveness works directly on the emotion of anger, resentment, hostility, and hatred by diminishing its intensity or level within the mind and heart. Only the one who is wronged can forgive.

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