Maybe the Most Difficult Act

There comes a point in all of our lives in which we have to determine whether or not love is enough to be able to forgive. There is this concept of unconditional love, something I thought I had for all of my friends, but then comes an act of betrayal – the moment in which I discovered that what means love for me, means something different for others.

I follow the same path with certain friendships. We meet. Something drives us together. We have a great time & then some female destroys the friendship and I walk away a little battered and bruised, but mostly just angry. It's happening again & I wonder if I ever really loved these people. I wonder how God feels when He finds that His creation does not adore Him the same way in which He loves His creation. I am not likening myself to God, but I try to embody Him in most things I do. I can't help but stick to this idea that there is something in this world that loves unconditionally. It's something for which I don't think we have the capacity. I want to believe that I can continue to be loving and understanding when my ego is bruised, but pride gets in the way every time.

I learned to quell the outbursts of my pride and be graceful in the face of opposition, but I am not a saint and most certainly not the embodiment of God. I am petty more than I would like to be and as much as I want to rise above the most base emotions of humanity, I can't. I still want to cuss out the girl who stepped to me. I want to run her over with my car, to be quite frank, but not until after I tell her why no one likes her and make her cry. I won't. I want to make him live his days out alone and forever ostracized, but I wouldn't know where to begin with making that a reality. Even if I did, I couldn't. I want to be who I used to be in a lot of ways. I want the aspect of myself that knew how to hold on to anger and bottle it up and use it at those who harmed, but somewhere in my maturity I learned that loving your enemy is the best decision – that I don't have to be confrontational to get my point across, and that sometimes forgiveness is divine.

I remember listening to this sermon a couple of years ago, and the pastor was speaking on forgiveness. And he cites how Jesus said, when questioned about the limit of forgiving a person, that you forgive 77 to the 77th power. I tried to calculate the real number, but the calculator wouldn't give it to me, but it's enough to say that it's a lot of times. I don't think that we, as a species, are really able to conceive some millions of times to forgive. The other thing the pastor said was that even in our forgiveness we should not forget. There is what I find to be the most difficult task. How do you remember the act that caused offense without harboring the anger that comes with it?

The saying is that time heals all wounds and erases all past indiscretions. I used to hold on to so much anger and resentment. I used to think that the anger was my comfort, but with age I have learned that it just keeps you empty. I tend, now, to leave my anger in the past with the person who caused the anger and move forward, but it appears more as a safeguard, locking my self up in self-righteousness. My gallery of friends always in my corner to say “you deserve better,” but then I have to question their motives – what anger are they holding on to that keeps them from being forgiving? I keep returning to my pride – that stupid voice in the back of my head that keeps me moving forward, back to where I begin. What of my pride? What does pride do for anyone? But respect, for self and for others, that is where my focus should lay. And in that aspect of respect, how can one not respect one's self for forgiving?

So, the decision is made. Pride is forgotten and respect is maintained with the simple act of forgiveness.