Sunshine Cathedral Blog

by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins

“Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean that we will allow injustice again.” Jack Kornfield

Forgiveness is healing release. It isn’t ignoring pain, nor is it approving of abusive behavior or betrayal. Forgiveness is saying, “I’m not going to torment myself for days / weeks / months / years with something you did in the past.”

Now, once we are willing to forgive, we can even begin to see that the person or people who wronged us were themselves acting from habitual pain, fear, brokenness. As Louise Hay says, “We’re all victims of victims.” Once we see that most people are doing about the best they can most of the time, we can view even our perceived enemies with compassion.

And you know what? Sometimes we even need to forgive ourselves! Sometimes we need to realize that our behavior at some point did not honor the God in us, but also, in that set of circumstances, we were doing what we knew to do or we were doing the best we believed was possible. We’ve learned some lessons since then and experienced some healing, so why not give ourselves a break too?

Forgiveness isn’t easy, and sometimes the best we can do is say out loud that we are “willing” (at least in a particular moment) to forgive. But that little willingness is sometimes enough to ignite a miracle. We don’t have to allow people to continually betray us, walk all over us, or abuse us, but neither do we need to continually punish ourselves with bitterness, resentment, and ill-will. Forgiveness is a desire for healing, a choice to release the past to the past, an affirmation that love is bigger than any difficulty we’ve experienced. And so we pray each week, “Forgive us our debts (trespasses / transgressions / sins) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us / those who have sinned against us).” Amen.