When you forgive someone do you say that you may forgive but you will not forget? If that is so, is that true forgiveness?

Recently I responded poorly to a friend of mine. He had offered to come over and do some gardening for me.

The morning that he was supposed to arrive, he didn’t, neither did he call.

I stewed a bit and considered how to handle this slight. I thought about being kind and asking him if anything had happened. I chose though to be unkind. I  sent him a nasty text message accusing him of lying.

We exchanged a few text messages and they were neutral, not accusatory or compassionate.

The next day when he came over and did the gardening  he asked me why I had called him a liar. I told him I didn’t know him that well so I had not discerned his character correctly.

That was a true statement but not the whole truth. I had not forgiven men in the past who had lied to me. The evil that they wished to visit upon my heart was still there. The wound was still gushing blood. This dear man was hurt because others had hurt me.

This morning as I was reading through the Bible a commentary about forgiveness caught my eye. It said that to forgive is to send off or away. So to forgive is to push the pain away that others intend to inflict upon you.

It is to return to your finer self as I have written about in a previous post. It is essentially wiping the slate clean of the hurt which the devil intended to sow into your heart.

I have always prided myself on my ability to forgive. Through this lesson from God I have realized that I really haven’t the slightest clue as to how to forgive. I am only just beginning to learn.