What is the most difficult battle many will have to overcome in love? I dare say it is the battle of forgiveness. One thing you can count on in life is that offences must come. We all have the choice of either taking offence or forgiving the offence. Those who chose the former over the latter, are bound to live bitter, unfulfilled lives that would greatly corrupt their love potential absolutely.
FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS
It is true that the gravity of pain experienced when we are hurt by someone we love is colossal. It is however true that a lack of forgiveness won’t make things even between both parties. Refusing to forgive is getting back at yourself, for what someone else has done to you. This is unwise. The one who hurts the most in a scenario devoid of forgiveness is the offended, not the offender.
Harbouring hurts in your heart towards anyone is bound to cost you your health, your peace and in most cases, your overall well being. This makes forgiveness, not just a thing you do for another, but it is something you are doing for yourself. Whenever I struggle to offer forgiveness to an offender, I am often reminded that our only impetus for significance lies in the fact that the creator unconditionally forgave us of our errors, or we won’t be alive today. This is why one would be an emotional fraud to withhold the same forgiveness we freely received from our creator from those who have offended us.
The only clause is that forgiveness is not for the defiant it is for the repentant. It is not for the rebellious, it is for the remorseful. It is not for those who justify themselves in their wrongs, it is for those who have realized the gravity of their wrongs.
FORGIVING YOURSELF
Unfortunately forgiving yourself is by far more difficult for many than forgiving others. Sometimes this is so because many people have high expectations of themselves and when it doesn’t materialize, they take it up, on themselves. Those finding it hard to forgive themselves must realize that their guilt in itself lacks the power to change their lives. Secondly, they must accept their humanity and all of the frailties attached to it as they try to work out their development. Such must also take solace in the fact that their challenge isn’t peculiar, the same challenges abound in the lives of many people on earth today.
This is not to excuse our inadequacies. Rather it is to encourage us to lay hold on to a higher quality of life, than the one our personal failures are convincing us to live. Hard as forgiving ourselves and others may be, those who pay this tough price are bound to be richer, happier and more fulfilled in their love lives, than those who don’t. If you love yourself, learn to forgive yourself and those who offend you.
THE GREATEST IS LOVE
