The Scripture says to forgive a person seventy-seven times, or, by another translation "seven x seven" times. Seven in Hebrew numerology is a powerful number. It is the number of God's perfection. So to forgive someone "seven x seven" times, is to offer infinite forgiveness. This does not mean be a doormat to the inequities of others. It means to seek to correct their behaviour out of pure love. And if the behaviour cannot be corrected, to dismiss them from your lives. "Cast them into the outer darkness." What that means is, remove them from your place in in the light of goodness, and allow them to dwell in their own separation from goodness, and therefore, God. But once you have let them go, let IT go.
Sounds easy, right? Try it. It is hard sometimes to let go of our ego. Sometimes we allow the hurt that someone else has caused us to define us (or at least a portion of us.) We tell ourselves that IT is over, that we are over IT, yet occasional IT raises its ugly head, even if only in our innermost thoughts. Sometimes during the quiet times.
I struggle with this every day. There are some things in my life, and a couple of people that I am having a hard time forgiving. I want to. I want to let IT go, because the suffering it causes me in no way effects the person that I am suffering over. I am doing it all to myself, and it gets in the way of things that I would rather be contemplating.
An even harder thing than this (and the point of this post) is forgiving yourself for something that you have done. Even when the victim(s) of your actions have forgiven you. A while back, I had an incident where I lost my temper and and hurt someone that I love. We all freaked out, then grieved over it, then talked about it, then, in the end, I was forgiven. Yet, to this day, several years later, the specter of this event rears up out of the mists of my subconscious, and I find myself replaying the incident over and over again, and remorsing over it in my mind. This usually happens in the wee quiet hours of the morning, and it seems to come out of nowhere. Then I pray to God, over and over again, time and time again, to allow *myself* to forgive myself for this. I know that I am forgiven, but I myself have a hard time letting it go.
So you see, while it is infinitely important to forgive others, it is even more important to be able to forgive yourself. If you cannot forgive yourself, that is tantamount to saying that you don't believe that your loved ones can forgive you, and that God cannot forgive you. That can cause quite a snarl in ones spiritual advancement, don't you think?
This is my insomnia conundrum. I have not forgiven myself for when I have been afraid- for times of inaction- for times when my shock of the situation has prevented action- for every time I have forgotten something.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand forgiveness vs. letting them have the win- allowing them to be right. I want those who have harmed me to understand they have caused harm. There have been times when I have been told my being hurt was my own fault-
One of these days, I hope to understand that 'the sky is not red' and more importantly, have it stick.