by Cheryl Carson

(This is an article written for Real People magazine, January, 2008. It also appeared on Meridian Magazine, the online place where Latter-Day Saints gather, July 2008.)

Only one obstacle keeps us from forgiving others. It is the belief that we are not the one who receives the benefit of our forgiveness. Unconsciously, we associate forgiveness with loss instead of gain. We may think of it as acquiescence, "giving in." Yet, who is the one who suffers? When our grievance grows to hatred, we become slaves of the very persons we hate. We are bound to them with chains that leave us no peace. None of us can afford to pay the price of carrying grudges or harboring bitterness, because of what it does to us.

A Great and Heavy Burden

I have met people who could recite long lists of grievances and hurts collected throughout their lives. None of them have seemed to be very happy people, however.

Years ago I wrote some articles about growing older. I interviewed several elderly people and found most of them to have happy, positive attitudes. One woman, however, seemed to revel in recounting to me every offense that had come to her in her life. She recalled all the pain, the result of others’ mistreatment of her. Her feelings toward her grown children were bitter, and she was filled with resentment, her judgment of them blaming and accusatory.

She expressed a hope that one day the story of her life could be made into a movie, so exceptionally fraught with undeserved heartache it had been. It was clear that the accumulation of the hurts was a great and heavy burden for her; she seemed miserable indeed. Unfortunately, when one chooses to dwell on the pain of his injuries, he has, at the same time, chosen to turn his back on the joy of his blessings.

Resentment―the Poisonous Emotion

Resentment, the opposite of forgiveness, has been called the “poisonous emotion.” It has even been said that 80% of physical illnesses come from unresolved resentments.

I read of one woman who kept a “hate book.” Every time her husband did something that annoyed or offended her, she wrote it down in her book, saying silently, “Another nail in your coffin.” If one looks for nails, they can be found. Embittered people can usually explain in great detail the reasons for their resentments, having tangible evidence in the nails they’ve collected. Ultimately, however, they are nails in their own coffins.

Forgiving Others, an Act of Self-Love

A time for healing—why not now? How much happier would we find ourselves, free of the burden of old wounds, old grudges, old judgments and negative feelings. Why drag dead wood, scars, and thorns with us into our future—the future that we create for ourselves? To be wronged is irrelevant unless we continue to remember it. Forgiving does not undo what has been done. One simply decides not to allow the memory to hurt him further.

The more we have been hurt, the more we deserve to forgive. Forgiveness is an act of self-love, a healing gift we give ourselves. It is a restoration to wholeness for those who suffer from the actions of others. It is relieving ourselves of the destructive burden that resentment and anger lay upon us.

Every day we choose our own quality of life. Benjamin Disraeli said it beautifully: “Life is too short to be little. There are too many worthwhile causes to serve, too many great books, lectures, musicals, trips, friends, loved ones to help—too much to be little—grumbling over past painful experiences, brooding over injuries, conjuring up ways to get even, smarting over grievances until we cannot sleep. Life is too short.”

We Choose Our Own Quality of Life

French novelist Andrẻ Maurois, in This Week magazine, expanded on Disraeli’s thought: “Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Perhaps some man we helped has proved ungrateful…some woman we believed to be a friend has spoken ill of us…some reward we thought we deserved has been denied us. We feel such disappointments so strongly that we can no longer work or sleep. But isn’t that absurd? Here we are on this earth, with only a few more decades to live, and we lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.”

Life is too brief for hate and spite. We have no time for malice. Life is too swift for bitter thoughts or words. Life is too great for petty things.

What quality of life do you want for yourself? Someone said, “One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything every night before you go to bed.”

We can consciously choose the thoughts that fill our minds, our hearts, our lives. Fill each day and each hour with happy thoughts, happy memories. The troublesome, pain-filled thoughts will then wither and die of neglect. After we let go of hurt and resentment through forgiveness, the void is filled by such things as serenity, gratitude, self-respect, and kindness. The bitterness is replaced by warmth. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. We can choose a better way.

The Passage to Inner Peace

If forgiveness is something we need to learn, we will continue to attract opportunities to practice it. But peace and happiness and true freedom are attainable once we have learned to let go, once we have learned to forgive.

What could you want that forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a feeling of safety and comfort and warmth that cannot be disturbed? Forgiveness bestows all this upon you, and more. When you awaken, it gives you joy to meet the day. It soothes you while you sleep and rests upon you, removing all dreams of fear, evil, and malice. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of harmony and serenity. Forgiving others is the passage to inner peace.

Learning to Forgive

Learning to forgive was the greatest, most pain-filled struggle of my life. I searched and studied, plead, wept, and prayed. “There must be some kinda trick to this!” I thought in despair. “And if I ever get it figured out, I’m going to share what I’ve learned with others who might be struggling, as well.”

The breakthrough finally came. With my heart softened, my mind was open to a new way of thinking, a new perspective.

An “Aha!” Moment

I was filled with happy relief to learn about taking offense. In order for there to be an offense, a two-part transaction must take place. There must be one giving the offense and one taking offense. If the second party refuses to take offense, then violá! No offense!

What a wonderful, freeing feeling it is to know that, rather than feeling like helpless victims, we can take responsibility for our own lives. Otherwise, we have given another person power and permission to not only hurt us once, at the time he did his dreadful deed, but to continue controlling our lives, blocking our passage to peace and happiness.

There’s a story I like about two painters on their lunch break. One of them looked into his lunch box and protested, “Peanut butter again! I hate peanut butter!” His fellow worker inquired, “Why don’t you ask your wife to make you something else?”

“Oh, I’m not married,” replied the first man. “I make my own lunches.”

We, too, “make our own lunches.” We may believe we are powerless in controlling the hurt we feel as a result of the actions of others. Not so! While negative, bitter thoughts may come to us uninvited, we decide whether or not we will entertain them. If I don’t do my own negative thinking, nobody is going to do it for me.

Judge Not

There is another wonderful thing I learned, a seemingly magical formula that will make forgiveness easy—and, ultimately make it unnecessary. It is simply, “judge not.” You see, in order for me to feel there is someone I need to forgive, I would first have to judge that person as having wronged me.

How presumptuous of us to feel that we have the right and the ability to judge another’s motives, the intent of his heart, and to know all the events of his life that have influenced his way of thinking and behaving. How can we presume to have the right to judge and to decide who is and who is not deserving of our forgiveness?

In the movie Rudy, the Catholic priest said, “There are two things I have learned in all my years: first, that there is a God; and second, that I’m not Him.”

It is not the event itself that determines our feelings, but our own personal judgment of the event that influences how it will affect us. Imagine being on an elevator. It stops and a man enters, stepping squarely on your foot, and it hurts! Feelings of anger well up inside you. Now, replay the exact same event, only this time you notice that the man is carrying a white cane. Rather than judging the man harshly, you look upon him with compassion, believing him to be doing the best he can, considering his handicap.

Wouldn’t it be easier to forgive others if we perceived them as being handicapped? Perhaps they are blind emotionally; they can’t see how they hurt others. Perhaps, because of unfortunate circumstances in their past, they don’t know any other way of relating to people. If we could see into their hearts as God can, see them in the full context of their lives, we would understand their behavior and feel nothing but love and compassion for them.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

People who inflict harm on others really and truly do not know what they are doing. They send out disharmony because that is all they have to give away. Judging and hating them for their behavior is akin to hating moss for growing on a tree and destroying the appearance of the tree. The moss only knows how to be moss, and regardless of my opinion about how it should not be behaving in such mosslike ways, it will still continue doing all that it knows how to do.

Even Your Enemies

Some wise guy said, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much!”

With more compassion, we can see our enemies in a different light. Even the most depraved person began as an innocent baby, a vulnerable child, perhaps a wounded youth.

If I do not forgive, I become like my enemy. I may not be able to change my oppressor with my love, but I can keep hatred from destroying my heart, mind, and life, as it has destroyed his. A follower of Christ can have enemies, but he cannot be an enemy.

To say that giants of evil are beyond forgiving gives them power they should never have. They get a stranglehold on their victims, sentencing them to a lifetime of unhealed pain. Instead, visualize yourself in the presence of the person who has violated you. Imagine yourself saying to him, “I forgive you for what you did.” Then picture him saying to you, “Thank you. I set you free now.”

Our Best Teachers

If we could see the entire picture, we would feel gratitude, knowing that those who hurt us may have been our best teachers. Everything that happened to us is a lesson we can be grateful for. Everyone who comes into our life is a teacher, regardless of how much we may choose to hate or blame him or her. There truly are no accidents.

Turning It Over to God

It is a blessing to be able to forgive unconditionally. Unconditional forgiveness simply means that we have turned the situation over to God, leaving judgment to him. We can place our trust in him and let him deal with the offender in his own time and way. Unconditional forgiveness frees us of a heavy burden, knowing that we don’t have to wait for the person to ask our forgiveness. No need to wait for proof that he is sufficiently sorry or properly penitent. We can forgive immediately—even at the time of the infraction—because the faster we can do it, the free-er we will be.

A young father told of losing his wife and infant daughter in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The driver “drunkenly asked me to forgive him for what he had just done that night….I could not say no. I told him flatly that I forgave him, and I meant it. In honesty, I must say that I never wanted to be his buddy or pal. Indeed, I cannot even remember his name, nor do I know where he is now. But I will be eternally grateful for his asking for forgiveness that Saturday morning before dawn, because in complying I was freed from the thrall of anger and hate that otherwise could have brought even greater sorrow into my life. From this tragedy I think I learned something new: Forgiveness brings true and genuine freedom—often to the forgiven, but always and without exception to the forgiver.”

All That We Give, We Give to Ourselves

We ourselves decide the standard by which we will one day be judged. The scriptures, taken literally, are replete with statements of this truth. Christ taught, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matt. 7:1-2). The Lord’s Prayer describes very clearly how obtaining forgiveness works: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Then Christ’s very next words following the prayer clarify the point further: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:12, 14-15). And in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

Reading these passages makes me want to run out onto the street and call out, “I love you all, and I forgive everybody!”

If we demand justice from others, then justice will be demanded from us. But, if we are merciful and forgiving of others, then God will extend his mercy and forgiveness to us. And that is justice. What could be more just than to get back exactly what we give out? “For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again . . .” (see Alma 41:14-15).

Truly, forgiveness is a healing gift we give ourselves.