Forgiveness

Forgiveness is such a tricky subject and by far I am no expert. To me, forgiveness is freedom. Freedom from the angst and pain that is inflicted on you by another individual. There are many instances where I have forgiven people for doing wrong, however they continue to make poor decisions or exemplify their own insecurities or character weaknesses. Yes, I judge people, yet I have my own insecurities and character weaknesses. It is one of the great fallibilities of humanity and one of the greatest ironies of our own imperfections. We judge other people’s faults, yet we are consistently broken and faulty.

An interesting situation that I have come upon is I harmed a close friend who I would consider a brother. I harmed my brother over trivial matters, disagreements and in today’s world, politics. We all know todays politics are polarizing however these types of disagreements should never end friendships. In addition, I made some judgements about his character that were out of line. To make things even worse, this friend came to visit me in the hospital during a significant injury yet when he was severely injured I was not able to visit him for one reason or another. The reason I was not able to visit was probably because of my own injury, I don’t recall.

After some deep thought and recognizing my trespass I decided to write my friend a letter. In my letter I outlined my mistakes and asked him for forgiveness. In fact, I pleaded for his forgiveness. After some time, I never heard a response. After a polarizing event at his place of employment I briefly reached out via a text message to ensure he was ok. He informed he was ok and said that he was planning to write me back, however he never wrote me back.

This is where forgiveness gets tricky. I pleaded for his forgiveness in a letter and never received a response. Now I must do the forgiving and frankly I don’t know the next step is in this process. Do I call, do I write, do I just forgive and forget anonymously or perhaps send my friend a letter of forgiveness in another letter? For me, this is no power of wills. Who is going to reach out first? I don’t get involved with stubborn behavior. Imagine if one of us died? How would the other feel if we went to the others funeral. It would be unimaginable. I look forward to some commentary below.

Take good care…..