When it's a one-way street...part 4

[sandi2]

I'll use way too many words, but please be patient.

I was fortunate enough to have been taught several years ago about what true forgiveness is....and what it isn't. I was fortunate b/c I don't think I'd be here today, if I had not been given that information. It was vital to me when I was faced with applying forgiveness to my H. It also helped me to know we can forgive without an apology from the offender. (Which I never had.)

Forgiveness is a personal decision we make. The fact that we have really forgiven, is not based on an emotion. When we forgive, it is an act of our own free will. It has to be our choice, or it's not genuine. This was so important for me to learn b/c I use to base everything on my feelings. But if forgiveness is based on my feelings I have at the time…..then I’d never be able to forgive some things! Sure, it helps if my heart will mellow out where I feel better about forgiving the rascal, but you know…..I learned to do it in spite of my feelings.

So, we make a decision to forgive the other person. We may or may not think they deserve to be forgiven, but that’s not the real issue. The real issue in forgiveness is that it's based on who we are....not who the other person is. It's more about our character instead of their character.

Once we make the decision to forgive, it’s not necessary to tell. Unless he has admitted doing us wrong or has asked for our forgiveness, we don't have to announce it. (There are some who just as soon tell us to keep our forgiveness b/c they don't want it), so telling or not telling is also our decision.

Go into this without any expectations from him. Where have we heard that before? I think we've heard that advice quite a bit right here on DB. Same thing applies in this case, too. We can't do it as if it were a magic spell and set back to see the big payoff. If anything, we are usually tested about that "forgiveness" we told ourselves we were doing. Tested by our own self doubt when we experience any negative emotions...AFTER we forgave the person.

I think that goes back to your question.

How do you know when you've forgiven someone? /quote]

Although the act of forgiving isn’t based on emotions, it usually brings a sense of peace to the mind that has had so much negative in it. Once we let go of all those negative feelings we’ve carried around for so long, we may discover our emotional load is quite lighter!

Forgiveness is our decision to let go of our anger, hurt, resentment, etc. that we have toward another person. We make the decision that we will no longer be a slave to those destructive emotional cancers. We realize that we have punished ourselves by having hard feelings toward the other person. Maybe we aren’t ready to let go b/c somehow we think we need to punish him a little longer. That’s just wrong!

Let's say you have made the decision from your own volition to forgive your H about...whatever (pick one). Since both you and your H are human beings, there is a good chance that he'll say or do something to trigger your anger/doubt/or something. If you react....even if it's kept within your own mind....you may wonder if that means you failed and didn't REALLY forgive him in the first place--or you wouldn't be feeling that way now. That's an old trick our mind uses to cause us to doubt ourselves. CV, you don't stop having emotions to things, especially if he does something that hurts. Neither do we lose our memory after we choose to forgive. We just don’t dwell on it and allow it to control us.

The old offense should not weigh on us as before, but you aren’t shielded to new hurts. New offense can hurt and if that new offense looks and feels like the old one, then it can cause us to doubt about success in forgiving him at all. Why? Based on what?

What do you do when you start to experience that stuff again? Do you wonder that something must be wrong....and you must have failed and didn't forgive him at all....yada, yada. This is important right here so don't look it over too quickly.....you come right back to that doubt with the self knowledge (b/c it was a self decision) and determination (b/c you are certainly determined) that you chose to forgive him and you stillchoose to forgive him. It may sound silly, but sometimes we have to speak to our doubting minds and tell it to stop stop!!

If you are a Christian, then you can relate this with how you believe God loves you. You know He does because His Word says so. When those bad days come and your mind or emotions try to cause you to doubt His love......what will you do then? Will you say that since you don't "feel" very loved right then, or you aren't lovable therefore God couldn't possibly love you? That's when you realize it's not based on your feelings. Feeling the love is great, but let's face it, we don't always have the warm fuzzies, we'd like. In spite of doubts, you know the truth and it's based on the Word of God. It's up to you to believe it.

[quote]How do you know that you haven't?

When you have no peace. When you cannot resist talking about the “forgiven” offense. When his offenses plague you day & night. When you make a stance on your decision to forgive, but you continue to treat your H no differently.
I believe the most telling sign of unforgiveness is if you drag up old offenses when you get into a R talk or argument with him.

Forgiveness is an act of grace.

I never heard of anyone regretting that they forgave an offense.