Recently I have had days when I find myself reflecting deeper than before. Reflecting more on the self. And I have come to understand my strength, because of all the trials I have gone through. But something was missing. Trials are always there to teach us something. And sometimes they are there to challenge us and our beliefs.
The biggest challenge has been forgiveness and understanding the whole process of forgiveness. We all know forgiveness but we often forget and not forgive. Sometimes we may feel that someone has wronged us or hurt us too deeply that they do not deserve to be forgiven. By the question is, why do we forgive?
Do we forgive based on how much pain we felt? Do we forgive based on the hurt we went through? Should others do the same too? Should there even be standard in forgiveness? Is forgiveness not a sign of love?
We are all human beings who want to be loved, yet we do not always show love in the form of forgiveness. Sometimes we create these standards and apply them to ourselves. We find that when others forgive us for our faults, we still go on bashing ourselves because we feel we had wronged the person too deep. Remorse is okay but regret can be very dangerous. When we set standards, we create regret each time within us whenever we are forgiven by other, and this results in us trying to always avoid the mistake we made before. And in the end, we attract that same mistake we are trying not to do.
The worst is when one has done themselves wrong. In life we all make stupid decisions which come back to haunt us. But if we put standards on forgiveness, we fail also to forgive ourselves. We sit deep in regret, hate and anger towards ourselves and end up withdrawing ourselves from other people because we think they feel the same way about us. We think they think we stupid, lost, foolish, dirty or broken. And this is because we fail to understand, that forgiveness is simply an act of love. It is acknowledging that a wrong has been done, and then letting go of it, regardless of how deep it was. When you start measuring depth, you start digging a pit for yourself.
So in the end, this may trickle down to our faith/spiritual life. And this is something I have personally gone through. I had forgiveness standards myself. If someone hurt me too much, I felt they needed to earn my forgiveness and not get it so easy. And yet I was a sinner. And the same standards I had for others, were the same ones I set for myself and believed God wanted. Even when forgiven, I always felt too dirty and undeserving of God's forgiveness. And this created a huge distance between me and God.
That was until I realised something:
"We forgive others out of love, not out of the level or depth of hurt. Just as we were forgiven out of love.
And we love regardless of if others deserve it. Just as we were loved when we least deserved it."
Learn to forgive other, and it will make it easier for you to accept forgiveness from others and also from yourself.
WITH LOVE...
Mbuelo Ramafamba
