The Act of Forgiveness

As a way of reminder, it is worthy to note that humans are far from perfection and as such, they are susceptible to errors and whatnot. Obviously, people may have stepped on your toes either knowingly or not, but in all these, you have to learn the act of forgiveness. Forgiving someone is not necessarily because the person asked for it nor because the person deserves it nor because you have okayed what they did, but because you deserve your peace.

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There is a level of peace that comes when you forgive someone and when you know that you bear no grudge against anyone. You will agree with me that if you have unforgiveness against someone and you suddenly meet them, there will be a kind of uneasiness that will be within you and your heart may skip a couple of beats. This is just to let you know that forgiving someone for their offense is more beneficial to you than the person that offended you, because of the sake of your peace.

It is true that forgiving someone does not erase what they did to you but trust me, it will help to heal the wounds of the past. Forgiveness is not what you do once in a while. As long as you interact and relate with people and as long as offences come, forgiveness should be a lifestyle. Some people that offended you may not have done it on purpose and it may not have been in their intention to do it, so you have to look beyond the offence and forgive. There is an Igbo adage that says that:

Holding someone on the ground automatically means holding yourself too.

When you hold someone to unforgiveness, you are doing yourself more harm. To free people through forgiveness is to free yourself too. The power that is embedded in forgiveness cannot be overemphasized. This is because it involves the peace of the mind, and peace is one of the most precious virtues of life. If you value the peace of your mind, then you have to understand that forgiveness is not an option but it should be a lifestyle.

One thing to know is, unforgiveness can destroy oneself. More so, that your forgave someone does not mean they are automatically your friend, but it does not also mean that they are your enemies. You have to understand that your cannot stop offences from coming, you can only determine how your respond to them.

However, one thing to note is that for you to be able to forgive others, there is a need to forgive yourself of the past first. Forgiveness should start from oneself and then it can flow to others. If you cannot forgive your past actions and the errors you did in the past, how do you hope to forgive others for their own? Obviously, you cannot give what is nonexistent. So the first step is to learn self-forgiveness. It is when this is perfected that forgiving others will become easy.

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When you forgive, try to make it total. You cannot claim to have forgiven someone but you constantly remind them of their past errors. Also, you need to forgive everyone that has offended you. Remember, it is forgiveness that begets forgiveness. I will leave you with this quote from the Holy Book:

Forgive us our offences as we forgive those that have offended us.

Thanks for reading