Forgiveness

Picture yourself in 3rd grade Sunday School. You have just had a talk about why forgiveness is important, and you are discussing its finer points. Toward the end of the discussion the teacher adds that there are those whom it is difficult, neigh impossible to forgive. She then asks the question, "Who is it difficult to forgive?" After a few tense seconds one brave 10 year old raises his hand. "Hitler" comes his answer. Another hand flies into the air. "Stalin" comes the next answer. The list goes on and on until every perpetrator of mass murder that these kids have heard of is on the list. Many adults still try to hide behind such easy answers, and really don't admit who they really have the hardest time forgiving.

Everyone knows the history of Germany during WWII and the atrocities that Hitler and the 3rd Reich committed. We are horrified that humans are capable of such acts. However, very few people who are alive today were directly effected by these events. Very few survivors are still alive from those concentration camps. While the rest of us feel anger and disgust at these events, they don't overwhelm our emotions for long periods of time. They don't consume our lives to the point where functioning is difficult. They are not our first waking thoughts, nor our final thoughts as our head hits the pillow. They simply do not directly effect us.

Even the atrocities that effect us are relatively easy to forgive. Picture a bully from High School. This is the guy that would pick on you every day until you wanted to cry. This is even harder to forgive than the distant mass murders, because they are closer. This strikes home. This directly effects you. However, it is still possible to forgive. Usually these people were always mean to you. You never expected any more from them nor did you receive it. After contact ceases, they are no longer important to you. The bullying has stopped; the problem is over. You can go on about your life.

The hardest ones to forgive are not the mass murders, the bullies, or any criminal. The hardest people to forgive are the ones who mean the most to you. Lets go back to the Hitler example. I was not captured and sent to the camps. If I was I would understandably feel some sort of anger toward Hitler and the guards. They were causing all this pain afterall. However, the ones I would be most hurt by were the ones that turned me in. Those were the ones that I had trusted with my life and had betrayed me. Neither the guards or Hitler himself could inflict a wound so deep.

The people that have the capacity to hurt you the most could be parents, siblings, friends, girlfriends, or boyfriends. These people had your trust. When push came to shove they were supposed to have your back. Your parents might not have protected you when you were younger. You parents might not have shown that they were proud of you despite your best efforts. Your friends might not have stood up for you. Your girlfriend/boyfriend might have cheated on you. Whatever the situation is, it is the sins committed by the ones most loved that cut the deepest and are hardest to forgive. Nothing else can cause such deep searing emotional pain. Nothing else can cause those long sleepless nights. Dante wrote that the deepest circle of hell was reserved for traitors. For the longest time I though he was much mistaken in his classification of sins from a human perspective, but the more I ponder it, the more I believe he was right.