Everyone gets hurt—damaged by someone else’s actions or offended by comments that shouldn’t have been made. Some individuals are the victims of a major breach in their relationships.
This can leave you gasping in pain, particularly when the injury comes from your mate, your mother or your best friend. These are individuals to whom you’ve given your deepest trust. People you thought loved you. When one of these individuals commit an offense against you, it goes right to the quick.
Forgiveness is a big buzzword. Experts say you have to forgive for your own well being and to be in alignment with positive karma. But nothing is said about understanding why this offense happened. You have to forgive.
But don’t be too quick to rush to say it’s okay. Don’t forgive too quickly. It isn’t healthy.
When an offense occurs in a relationship that matters—one you want to maintain, you may jump into forgiveness just so you can get beyond this painful place. You may say you forgive this horrible action. You want this behind you. You may want to keep the offender in your life. You may even feel—just a very little bit—noble in your forgiveness.
Painful, difficult things don’t go away just because you say you forgive.
And while forgiveness if supposed to heal all, false forgiveness doesn’t make anything better. Particularly if the offender never really asked for forgiveness or if the situation that caused your pain has never been effectively addressed. For forgiveness to make sense, something has to change. Relationships—between mother and child, those between friends and relatives—intimate relationships, these are difficult and complex. Sometimes offenses are not intended or foreseen
Still, when you get cheated on or lied to or deceived, offering forgiveness without change doesn’t help the situation. You may have contributed to this situation, you may have been less than honest yourself. Your need to own up to your own behavior, the things you’ve messed up.
But this doesn’t mean you need to overlook the other person’s actions.
Forgiveness doesn’t need to be given easily. If you’re too quick to offer it—if you don’t deal with the problems in the relationship—you’re offering an empty nothing. You’re trying to make everything okay, just by saying it’s okay.
True forgiveness just doesn’t work this way.