Don't forgive unless you're ready to.
This goes against the common spiritual wisdom that we should be ready to forgive our transgressors, that forgiveness sets us free. Maybe that's true, and we should forgive the person who cut us off in traffic.
But there are hurts so deep, so debilitating, that easily forgiving them feels like self-betrayal. Forgiving betrayal, murder, assault -- all these feel too heinous to forgive. And yet people clamor to tell the sufferer that they should let go, forgive. Often these people who press others to forgive have something to gain -- family members of the violator, the church of the violator, the violator themselves.
Withholding forgiveness gives a sense of power, maintains the anger that may be needed to recover. Anger is not evil; it's an emotion. Righteous anger helps us see our value, helps us recover. (Rage, however, consumes us and it's best not to play with anger until it becomes rage).
There comes a time, though, when the anger holds us in the past, when we've grown beyond the hurt, we have found ourselves again. Then it's time to forgive.
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