The Cost of Forgiveness

The hardest part of forgiveness is accepting that the injustice done against you may never be rectified. The truth is, most injustice can not be rectified. An unfaithful spouse can not “uncheat”, a hurtful word can not be “unsaid”, nor can a painful abuse be “undone.” No apology will ever be sufficient. No retaliation will ever be satisfying. No walls built will ever be high enough to protect us from the pain. At the end of the day, no matter how gross the injustice done against us, the pain we feel is ours. Try as we might to dish it out to the people who have wronged us, or even the people who haven’t, it will stay right there by our side. 

Forgiveness gives us the power to be freed from our pain because it cuts it off at its source. Pain tells us that we need someone else to make things okay, but forgiveness tells us that we already are okay, and nothing that anyone else does to us can change that. Letting go of that pain may feel like a grave injustice, but allowing the people who have hurt you to be the ones who define you is far more of an injustice. Forgiveness frees us from that. 

I am loved by God. That means that I am worthy of love. And that worth doesn’t change no matter how people treat me. That truth gives me the power to forgive. That truth gives me the power to take responsibility for how I’ve hurt others. That truth gives me the power to love courageously.