Must We Forget to Forgive?

I spent some time yesterday talking with a new friend about forgiveness – both what I’ve learned and what I’ve un-learned about forgiving someone who has hurt me.

As we talked, she mentioned the words, “Forgive and forget.”

I’m not a fan of those three words.

Please, don’t misunderstand me.

I value forgiveness. Reconciliation is my favorite word in the Bible – it’s the core truth in all of Scripture.

I’ve fought to understand true forgiveness, sifting through all the definitions and conditions presented to me by experts: authors and teachers and preachers and mentors and counselors.

It’s taken me years to understand forgiveness, to separate truth from personal opinion – my own, as well as others’ ideas about forgiveness.

Too often someone wise – wiser than you, supposedly – demands that you forget an offense.  They sum forgiveness up in two steps:

Forgive
Forget

It’s as if saying you’ve forgotten the offense proves you’ve truly forgiven the person who hurt you.

Forgiveness does not require forgetting.

Some offenses are so grievous they are impossible to forget. Abuse. Neglect. Divorce. Infidelity. Such wounds go soul-deep and can even cause someone to suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

In no way am I suggesting that we wallow in our pain. But demanding an unrealistic expectation that someone forget a life-altering emotional injury hinders someone’s ability to forgive.

It’s vital to realize forgiveness is a process.

Consider this: Let’s say you and your brother were sitting in a tree in your backyard. For some reason, your brother and you got in a fight and your brother shoved you right out of the tree so that you fell to the ground, breaking your leg.

No one in their right mind would tell you, “Don’t worry about getting that leg fixed. Just forget that happened.”

You’re injured. You have a broken leg that requires both medical care and time to heal. Even then, you may always walk with a limp – a reminder of what happened.

But we so often ignore emotional injuries – the broken hearts, the wounded spirits – hidden inside of others and inside of us. We tell others to forgive and forget, instead of remembering that any kind of healing requires time. And even with the passage of time, with healing, our hearts may have an “emotional limp” because of what happened to us. I truly believe this is when we become more compassionate to others.

Forgiveness brings healing – to us, to our relationship with others. But let’s not fall prey to the lie that forgiveness demands some sort of emotional amnesia on our part. Over time the memory will fade, the pain will lessen – thank God.

Start the process of forgiveness where you are today … and be gentle with yourself. You’re healing.

Must We Forget to Forgive? http://bit.ly/30HUF5r #forgiveness #healing
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'Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.' Quote by Martin Luther King Jr. http://bit.ly/30HUF5r #forgiveness #encouragement #martinlutherkingjunior
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