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Home > Resources > Forgiveness is the Hardest Thing Forgiveness is the Hardest Thing by Thom Smith
We are sensitive. We are wounded by the very real slights and offenses aimed at us. We imagine still others. And these things injure our memories as well as our egos. Long after the ego has pushed through the tough membrane created by our hurt, has moved on to a reasonable "letting go" of the thing, the memory outlives the actual pain. Forgiveness becomes a matter of cleansing the memory. "You must also forgive the dead," an old mountaineer admonished, counseled me. At the time, the pain from actions of those long dead was tormenting me. Some of the dead were people I had never known. But, the effects of our actions frequently transcend the grave, transcend time. My friend was right. We must forgive the dead as well as the living. And this makes forgiveness even harder for there is no discussion, no reconciliation, and no resolution. Forgiveness is all we have left, and it sometimes feels like "not enough." Forgiveness, as such, becomes a function, an action. And like the function of bodily elimination, it must take place daily and regularly if we are to be reasonably healthy and comfortable. Which makes forgiveness a discipline, a routine, as well as a grace-as are all graces. So long as we wait for the grace to "come," to be given, forgiveness is withheld and retained. We become constipated and impacted with the waste and toxins of resentment and pain. Thus, we are confronted with the "must" of forgiveness. Is this not at least a part of the truth of Jesus' words about forgiving in Matthew 6? So like everything else in the life of the Spirit, forgiveness is a mysterious grace, a gift. And it is an action, a duty, a discipline, something to be done. It is a "must." Waiting for grace becomes futile and maddening. We become morose, angry and miserable. We blame God as well as those who have injured us. The door to despair is cracked open and we peer into the void beyond. The death's-head of hopelessness stares back at us. To act when grace seems absent is painful, intolerable, insane. It is also liberating, the only possible way back to freedom, hope, and life. Which is to say: "Forgiveness is the hardest thing." |
