Everyone wants to think they got there (i.e. in difficult circumstances) accidentally or because of another person’s mistake. The truth is that you are always in your hard places because that is what you have chosen. When you reach into forgiveness, what is going on?
First, there is nothing to forgive the person for because he only gave you what you asked him to. So where does this forgiveness come in? Why would one need to ask for forgiveness? It is because you are asking for yourself. You are asking for your own forgiveness. Since it is nearly impossible for the average human being to look at their own need, by personality standards, to be forgiven, you always project it outward onto someone else or something else, a situation if not a person.
When you are forgiving, what are you doing? You are recognizing that this is a gift, a wonderous gift. In recognizing the gift, you are recognizing that forgiveness is the releasing and letting go of every error perception that you held that caused you to draw this to you in the first place. It is a form of cleansing, of releasing, of letting go, of getting rid of all of the debris that you pulled to you, that drew this very thing that you hated so. So you are cleansing. You are releasing and letting go of every error perception that you held about yourself that would have made you draw to you a painful situation.
Because forgiveness is part of an error perception, when you truly forgive, you come up out of that realization of the error perception. Forgiveness is a funny thing. It can wear many faces. You can say, ‘Oh, I forgive him. I’ll never forget what he has done, but I forgive him.’ If you can’t forget it, then you haven’t forgiven.
Is this to say that no matter what happens you say, ‘Oh, I forgive him. That was nothing. I am fine.’? No. it is not. You honor your pain. It is your pain. It is real to you. It is something that is a distressful thing. You don’t just say, ‘Oh, it didn’t happen. It is all right.’ That is not forgiveness. That is burying something.
Forgiveness is when you recognize that a thing has happened to you. You recognize that you asked for it, for its gift, and that whoever is involved with it is there because you invited him. You recognize that in the forgiveness you are cutting the bonds that held him to you. You are releasing him and you are releasing yourself from this whole thing. You are allowing the child of God of you to come out into the sunlight and play because there is nothing dark about you any longer. You have released it and let it go.
Do you forget it? In terms of constantly talking about it and drawing it back to you, yes, you do forget it. Do you forget it inside of you? No. You remember the blessing. You remember the lesson. Every time you think about it, you bless everyone involved in it and you thank them for their gift.”
10/13/2024 Blog. Archangel Gabriel, INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY, Pgs. 9-11. Copyright © 2013 Rev. Penny Donovan. All rights reserved.
