Thoughts on Forgiveness

During this teaching series on FORGIVENESS I’ve talked about how forgiving and forgetting are not the same thing. Sometimes we forgive and we do forget. Other times we forgive and yet the memory still lingers for a while. Other times we forgive and yet there are things that continually remind us of the past, past relationships and people that hurt us.

What we do with the memories is what is important. Will we use the memories to ‘get even’ with the other person or someone else? Will we use the memory to feed our sorrow and dysfunction? Will we do the healthy thing and by forgiving turn the memory into a thing of the past that will have no control over our present?

Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was reminded one day of a vicious deed that someone had done to her years before. As someone tried to get her to remember the incident she acted as if she had never even heard of the incident.

“Don’t you remember it?” her friend asked.

“No,” Barton replied, “I distinctly remember forgetting it.”

What will we do with our memories?

Someone has said: One of God’s better jokes is the ability to remember the past without the capability of undoing it.

Clara Barton was not saying that she forgot but that she was not going to dwell on the offense. It was not going to come up again. It was not going to control her. She was not going to use it to ‘get even’ with someone. As far as she was concerned – the past is the past is the past.

Let’s learn to ‘distinctly remember forgetting’ those things that we’ve forgiven.

Matt