Posted by Doug Showalter on December 04, 1998 at 19:30:49:
In Reply to: when someone hurts those you love posted by Jenny Smith on December 03, 1998 at 08:27:03:
Dear Jennie,
I think you are right. It does seem, relatively speaking, that it should be easier to forgive when the injury is in the past and you [as the person injured] are removed from the situation. However, I would add, that even then, under those more favorable circumstances, it still can be very difficult to forgive, depending on the injury and the circumstances.
You speak about your feelings concerning the harm this person has also done to your loved ones, namely, your brother and mother. In that regard, it might be helpful to consider this quote from Lewis Smedes, which I included in the quotation section of this web site:
"Forgiving is an affair strictly between a victim and a victimizer. Everyone else should step aside...The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them."
In terms of our own individual tasks of forgiving, I think it is helpful, as Smedes implies, to discern exactly how that other person has hurt us, so we can direct our forgiving to that injury. Otherwise, we run the risk of taking upon ourselves responsibilities for forgiving which really belong to others. If we take additional responsibilities on, we make our own forgiving all that much harder, and we may also make it harder for those others to do the forgiving they really need to do for themselves.
I mention this, in case it is of any help. When it comes to our loved ones, it's a challenge for us all to see where that line is between the hurt we feel because they have been hurt, and the hurt they have actually sustained directly.
Best wishes,
Doug Showalter