If you believe that you are the beloved, you can offer forgiveness, even when it cannot be received. For still you say, “I set you free and I am willing to forgive you even when you cannot forgive me, because I claim my belovedness.” And you can move on, saying, “I can ask your forgiveness even though you cannot give it to me yet, and perhaps ever.”
— Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, p. 80
There may be a desire to keep another locked in a web of blame and guilt. Unconditional gratitude given in these situations may at first feel as if we are letting people who we dislike “off the hook.” I can assure you from my own experience that it is ourselves we are letting off the hook. Gratitude, like its sister, forgiveness, frees the giver first of all. Gratitude brings freedom to our self-imposed prison of hatred and revenge. Perceived past wrongs are our prison bars. Unconditional gratitude melts these bars away. Hatred not only locks us in a tiny cell of self-pity, it keeps out those who are seeking to bring love into our life. (Hatred includes everything from rage to a seemingly innocent desire to avoid someone.) Our past, released with gratitude, frees our present to be as it could be.
Finally, the most marvelous gift that unconditional gratitude gives us is clarity and vision. Giving unconditional gratitude, I begin to see that everything is here to bless me. I really cannot explain how this happens. It just does. It makes no sense in terms of our worldly thought processes. Only the actual act, in which you give gratitude unconditionally, brings the fantastic results of seeing clearly. As I keep extending my gratitude to everyone in my past and my present, I start to see that all that surrounds me is actually in harmony. I begin to see that what I judged as harmful and unfair was really a misinterpretation, a faulty judgment based on my perception, which is very limited in its scope.
— Lee Coit, in Gratitude: A Way of Life, by Louise L. Hay and Friends, p. 40-42
We had already seen how God takes the trauma in our lives and uses it “for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). We’d learned about trusting God even when it seemed crazy to do so, and we’d seen firsthand the amazing power of forgiveness.
— Cheryl & Jeff Scruggs, I Do Again, p. 153
Adopting the perspective of the Stargazer not only leads us toward our future best destinies but actually transmutes past unhappiness into treasure. This is because, in emotional terms, everything is made from its opposite. The raw material for joy is sorrow; the raw material for compassion is anger; the raw material for fearlessness is fear. This means that the very people who hurt you worst may turn out to have enriched you most. “Forgiveness” isn’t even an issue from the position of the Stargazer. Why would anyone bother to “forgive” someone who’d made them rich?
— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight, p. 76
As we renew our commitment to the processes of life, then the processes of life will recommit to us. We’ll feel forgiven for a past that wasn’t all it should have been when we commit to a future that is all that it can, should, and will be — now that we’ve finally grown up.
The prodigal son did get home late, having partied hard, but his father rejoiced to see him. And so does ours.
Wherever you’ve been, and whatever you’ve done so far, your entire life was building up to this moment. Now is the time to burst forth into your greatness — a greatness you could never have achieved without going through exactly the things you’ve gone through. Everything you’ve experienced was grist for the mill by which you become who you are. As low as you might have descended, in God there are no limits to how high you can go now. It is not too late. You are not to old. You are right on time. And you are better than you know.
— Marianne Williamson, The Age of Miracles, p. 9
We all have opinions on who was right and who was wrong according to our own perceptions, and we can all find ways to justify our feelings. We want to punish others for what they did to us; however, we are the ones running the story over and over in our own minds. It is foolish for us to punish ourselves in the present because someone hurt us in the past.
To release the past, we want to be willing to forgive, even if we don’t know how. Forgiveness means giving up our hurtful feelings and just letting the whole thing go. A state of nonforgiveness actually destroys something within ourselves.
No matter what avenue of spirituality you follow you will usually find that forgiveness is an enormous issue at any time, but most particularly when there is an illness. When we are ill we really need to look around and see who it is we need to forgive. And usually the very person who we think we will never forgive is the one we need to forgive the most. Not forgiving someone else doesn’t harm the person in the slightest, but it plays havoc with us. The issues aren’t theirs; the issues are ours.
The grudges and hurts you feel have to do with forgiving yourself, not someone else. Affirm that you are totally willing to forgive everyone. “I am willing to free myself from the past. I am willing to forgive all those who may have ever harmed me and I forgive myself for having harmed others.” If you think of anyone who may have harmed you in any way at any point in your life, bless that person with love and release him or her, then dismiss the thought….
If you feel ripped-off by another, know that nobody can take anything from you that is rightfully yours. If it belongs to you, it will return to you at the right time. If something doesn’t come back to you, it wasn’t meant to. You need to accept it and go on with your life.
— Louise L. Hay, The Power Is Within You, p. 89-91
Forgiveness about injuries this deep does not come easily or quickly. There can’t always be a moment of forgiveness, when suddenly our lives are transformed. We are human. We need time to process our experiences, to mourn, to separate, to grow. Forgiveness brews within us, expedited according to our own creative capacities, impeded by our conflicts, a mysterious product of the human spirit. The reclamation of love and of the forgiving self is an arduous and profound journey.
— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self, p. 60
Have you ever met a person who had hatred, bitterness, and unforgiveness who didn’t feel justified?
— Michelle Borquez, Connie Wetzell, Rosalind Spinks-Seay, and Carla Sue Nelson, Live, Laugh, Love Again, p. 118
But the God of Scripture is also the God who refused to nuke Nineveh, even though that’s what Jonah wanted; who forgave David for a really staggering list of wrongdoings; who wants only for us stiff-necked people to repent and come home; who goes out into the stormy night for the one lost black sheep; who throws a party when the Prodigal Son returns; who loves us so much that God did indeed send his only begotten son to come live with us, as one of us, to help understand our stories — each one unique, infinitely valuable, irreplaceable.
— Madeleine L’Engle, The Rock That Is Higher, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, collected by Carole F. Chase, p. 323
It’s one of the toughest things in the world when somebody has hurt you, and you can find within yourself the strength to begin the whole process of forgiveness. And it turns out to be the gift to you, not so much the gift to the person you’re forgiving.
— Fred Rogers, quoted in The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers, by Amy Hollingsworth, p. 98