The Power of Forgiveness is Boundless.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness.  In the past year, I've been faced with quite a few situations where the act of forgiving was the furthest thing from easy. 

For example, one of which was my first real heartbreak.  I was cheated on.  My first wholehearted love ended up sleeping with a girl who absolutely hated me for no reason other than the fact that I was in a relationship with the guy she was obsessed with.  I didn't even know this girl existed before I began to date my ex!  But regardless, she made it very clear that she did not like me.  Two weeks after my boyfriend and I ended our relationship, a mutual friend of ours told me that my ex had gotten very intoxicated one night and ended up sleeping with the girl that was obsessed with him, over a month before we broke up.  He never told me.  When I confronted him, he bawled his eyes out because he knew that if I found out, it would completely destroy me, and it did.  I was shattered, and I still have yet to completely stabilize myself, although it happened last summer.  I still have yet to regain my ability to trust, and I still wonder if I ever will. 

One of my immediate thoughts was that I would never be able to forgive him for what he had done.  I just couldn't.  A few weeks later though, I changed my mind.  I've never been able to hold grudges for very long.  It was taking every ounce of my energy to remain bitter towards him, and it was doing nothing but bringing me further down.  It felt like I was drowning myself because I would not forgive him.  Once I told him that I forgave him, I felt like chains had been released from my every limb.  Although I was still extremely sad and heartbroken, I was no longer drowning myself in refusal to forgive. 

It dawned on me that to forgive someone is to free your own soul.  To simply say, "I forgive you" stuns the wrongdoer because it is so unexpected, and often times it leads to that individual drowning in his/her own guilt.  It also shows your strength and ability to see past someone's imperfections, because we are all flawed; no one is perfect. 

Another thing that I was very happy to realize is that to simply say, "I forgive you" is not equivalent to "I love you; I'll still date you; I want to marry you; I will befriend you; etc."  Forgiving someone doesn't mean that the two of you have to be best friends, or even friends at all.  Of course if you want to, you can; the choice is in your hands. 

To forgive means that you have let go of a grudge that was holding yourself down and holding yourself back from simply moving on.  You have freed yourself of hostility.  You have given to another what God gives to us every single day.  And for this very reason, I believe the power of forgiveness is boundless.