Forgiveness vs. reconciliation

There’s been some discussion of forgiveness at one of the blogs I read. Here are some of my thoughts.

First of all, forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation is when the relationship is restored — it requires the participation of both people. Forgiveness only requires one person’s participation. You can forgive someone without ever letting them know — such as when the person is deceased or when reconciliation is not safe for you.

Forgiveness is not vindicating, excusing, forgetting, condoning, erasing, or otherwise negating the harm that was done and your feelings about it.

Forgiveness cannot be earned. Apologies, penance, gifts, whatever — no one can require you to forgive them.

So those are some thoughts on what forgiveness is not.

But what is it?

It involves acceptance of reality: the harm was done and it cannot be undone, so there’s no use willing it to have never been. (Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t mourn and grieve that the harm was done.)

It involves clear boundaries: the offending behavior belongs to the other person and not to you; your feelings about the behavior belong to you and not to the other person. Forgiveness includes turning your attention to what’s yours instead of what’s theirs.

Therefore forgiveness is the withholding of punishment, leaving that to God. Punishment cannot undo the harm, and punishment has to do with the other person, not with you. Punishment that exists only in our minds (hating, willing harm against, etc) has no effect on the other person, but lies bitter on our souls.

In our healing process, this bitterness is hard to let go of, because it feels so much like pretending the harm was never done. We think we must never be happy and whole, because then it would be as if the harm had never happened. There’s a lot of grieving and raging that needs to be done before forgiveness is possible — it must come from a healing, safe, secure place, and not from a victimized place.