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12 Steps to Forgiveness

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Now when you go bankrupt, they don’t just let you start over as if nothing happened. You have no credit at all. You can’t borrow a dime. You have to start building from 0. And you have to be accountable for all your actions, spending (“time” if you’ve had an affair). You have to send in a monthly report of your income and your expenditures to the trustee, and show that you are managing your money well, and paying your bills for a period of time before they discharge you.

Bankruptcy laws are a beautiful thing. Giving people a second chance is much better than forcing them to live in prison for the rest of their lives, and most people go on to live productive lives after bankruptcy. In the same way many couples go on to live monogamous marriages after an affair. Peggy Vaughan’s husband (www.dearpeggy.com) has been affair-less for over 30 years now. What if she’d never forgiven him?

So forgiveness is canceling a debt, like when your credit card company calls you and says, “We see you’ll never be able to pay back the $10,000.00 you’ve racked up. We’re canceling it, and letting you start over. Just make sure it never happens again.” (We all wish that might happen in real life.) But that’s what forgiveness is. You don’t deserve it, but the person decides to give you a second chance, to believe in you, and give you a fresh start.

Understanding What Forgiveness Is Not

Forgiveness is NOT condoning the wrong behavior. Forgiveness is NOT forgetting about it. Forgiveness is NOT denial, pretending it didn’t happen. Forgiveness does NOT mean the pain has gone away.

To truly forgive we must be aware of an important distinction: Forgiveness is not reconciliation with the person. Reconciliation is different. Forgiveness is one person’s moral response to another person’s injustice.

The people who are hardest to forgive are our partners, ourselves, church people and God. Perhaps because we expect more from these individuals … and rightly so.

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