Forgiveness and Miracles

Forgiveness isn't the same as "letting it go" or "understanding the other person's side of it." The latter two are good, important things for getting along in the real world and moving forward in your life. I am starting to get better at them.
But forgiveness is something else. I think I have only really experienced it once in my life, and it was a gift. It wasn't something I asked for, because I didn't know what it was or how much I needed it. I think I was too angry even to want it.
Forgiveness is when the pain and anger and hurt is washed away and gone, as if it had never been. It is the closest I have ever really come to feeling the presence of God in my life, the sense that this is the way *He* does it, even if it's not the way that *I* ever have. Being able to stop hurting is a real miracle, perhaps one of the few left in our technological world.