Life is an interesting experience. A ride, complete with highs and lows, ups and downs, totally unplanned derailments, and the occasional unexpected events that force you to change to a completely different ride!
It’s interesting that sometimes we struggle to let go of the old ride, we resist enjoying the new ride we’re blessed with, and we can have a VERY hard time forgiving the people who forced us to leave the old ride we were enjoying.
I have to take a break from blogging my story to share some thoughts on an important concept that has made peace, happiness, joy and moving on possible in the new and unexpected ride of my life. My thoughts are on this: Forgiveness.
Sometimes it feels like it’s in short supply. And as hard as it might be in some instances, it is necessary to forgive others if you truly want to be able to live, or create a life of happiness and joy, especially after unexpected adversity comes. There is no other way. We have to let go, and we HAVE to forgive.
But don’t take my word for it. Take an expert’s. Listen to C. S. Lewis.
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century and probably the most influential Christian writer of his day. He wrote more than 30 books, and few writers have inspired more readers than he has. His works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year.
Here’s what he said that helps me: “When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people…forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart–every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.” (Virtue and Vice, page 22)
“I said…that chastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I am not sure I was right. I believe there is one even more unpopular. It is laid down in the Christian rule, ‘Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.’ Because in Christian morals ‘thy neighbor’ includes ‘thy enemy,’ and so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies. Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes them sick,’ they say. And half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much…I am not trying to tell you…what I could do…I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it.”
As we forgive, especially as we let go in very trying and difficult circumstances, when we rise above the lies, betrayals, greed, crimes, selfishness of others who have hurt us, and any other “bad” thing that happens to us, we are on our way to becoming what we must: better people; better for the experience; better prepared for that which is to come.
As we forgive, it is probably only then that we learn how to truly live.
