If You Can Forgive: So Can I

Today I witnessed a mother who visited her son's killer in jail.  Although for most of us this would seem odd I find it an act that makes complete sense.  It is likely that this act of forgiving would be one any of us would have a lot of trouble doing, for her it was a healing event.  What she learned and what we can all learn is that murderers are not all monsters who need to rot in jail forever.  In fact murderers are sometimes people who have never before done any thing wrong or unlawful.  In this case it was a young man who without thinking and out of desperation killed this mother's child.  Her goal was to show the man who murdered her son some pictures of her son.  She wanted him to feel a sense of remorse because when the incident occur ed he laughed in the courtroom where the case was heard and where he was sentenced.  Still this mother wanted to find a way to deal with her grief and she understood that this act of forgiving would help her heal.  As she shared her feelings with her son's killer he began to weep.  In that moment one could truly see the healing take place.  What a courageous woman and what a testament to the power of forgiving.

Most of us have not had someone kill a loving family member.  Most of us have not been through what this woman went through.  Yet many of us cannot fogive even the smallest of infractions.  In fact we latch on to the smallest mistake a person makes and we justify being angry at them for months.  We do all that we can to make another person's mistake seem like murder.  We take something so insignificant and we turn it into a major ordeal.  We carry the anger around for days or weeks and then we wonder why we are so miserable and dysfunctional.  Most of us do not have the capacity or willingness to forgive the smallest of infractions we feel are directed at us, even when we know deep inside that the person was not intentional in their treatment of us.  We are a society of judgemental human beings and yet the one thing that makes us human is that we are all flawed and will make mistakes.  Some of our mistakes will be ones that will hurt another human being and even then we justify our own and still we don't forgive others for the same things we have done.

Many do not believe that God forgave the ones who crucified him.  In fact it is hard to believe that God responded with "forgive them for they know not what they do".  If we could only think this one simple thought each time someone hurts us because in fact this is the truth many times.  Yes, in fact the people who harm us are clueless and at best simply haven't a clue that their behavior is harmful or even as severe as it is.  If we could only think that the person harming us is a person who is in need of light then we can accept it as something they cannot control.  We can give it back to them by not accepting it and by not personalizing it.  We can move forward when we understand and say: "God, forgive him as he knows not what he says" or God, forgive her for she is unable to understand the severity of what she did and said".  If God can forgive who are we not to/

I want to move on with my life this year and I want to leave the past in the past.  I forgive those who I perceive as enemies or evil beings because I know deep inside that they did not know what they were doing, at least not completely.  I also know that whatever harm they intended for me with their acts of ignorance and judgement, God intended for good.  I also understand that is it not my place to pass judgement, condemn of punish the people who hurt me.  Today I am in a place of forgiveness.  Today I am more healed.  IN fact I proclaim I am healed from all that had harmed me in the past.

I want to be the one to push you all to forgive and let go of the horrible feeling of anger.  I wan tot be the one to say that only love heals us.  Forgiveness is love and you will be healed because you forgive.
Elliott Maximo Collazo