Your Christmas Gift This Year

“Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.”  Joan Lunden

Corrie ten Boom spent most of WWII in a German concentration camp, where most of her family had died.  This is her story about forgiveness.

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck.  He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time.  And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.  He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”  His hand was thrust out to shake mine.  And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.  Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them.  Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?  Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.  I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand.  I could not.  I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.  And so again I breathed a silent prayer.  Jesus, I cannot forgive him.  Give me Your forgiveness.  As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.  From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.  And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His.  When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”  Lewis Smedes

The academic definition of forgiveness is a mental, motivational, and emotional change in a person who had experienced a violation of physical, emotional, or psychological boundaries.  Sue Monk Kidd realized “I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive.  It’s a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process.  It’s not something that happens overnight.  It’s an evolution of the heart.”

Mahatma Gandhi pointed to the difficulty in forgiving: “The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Forgiveness is both a personal decision and an emotional decision.

Decisional forgiveness is when we no longer pursue revenge and we make an intentional change in our attitude and behavior towards our offender.  Maya Angelou points to decisional forgiveness when saying “I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it’.”

Emotional forgiveness is changing away from the negative emotions of un-forgiveness, including resentment, bitterness, hatred, aggression, anger, and fear.

The Dalai Lama points out, “Love, compassion and forgiveness, the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”  Martin Luther King voiced his opinion, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”

Desmond Tutu offers this advice: “Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.”  Bernard Meltzer supports this view, “When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.”

With all of these famous people pointing to forgiveness, this Christmas Season, is it time to give yourself the gift of forgiveness?

Put up with each other, and forgive anyone who does you wrong, just as Christ has forgiven you. Colossians 3:13 (CEV)
Cheryl Gowin, and Dennis Gowin, Hope for Tomorrow Counseling Center.  Contact us with your feedback, comments, issues, or questions at 434-808-2637.