Christianity and Mental Health: Forgiveness

My last post I talked about broken relationships and how they affect one’s mental health.  After I posted it on my blog, I realized I did not discuss forgiveness.  Colossians 3:13 states “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”  This is not a request.  We need to keep the peace with each other especially among Christians.  How do you think the world thinks of us, as Christians, if they see us fighting with each other or being disrespectful?   

Forgiveness is an important step to take towards healing.  I cannot stress this enough!  Forgiveness is not for the one who wrong you, it is for you.  We can have peace if we forgive someone who wronged us.  For instance, before my ex husband and I split up he said some pretty nasty things to me.  It took a long time for me to forgive him and to realize the situation at the time prompted the harsh words directed at me.  Once I forgave him, I could start to grow as a free and independent person.  Years later he asked me to forgive him and my response was I already had. 

Forgiving the one who hurt you does take time.  Some hurts are easier to forgive than others.  For me it was easier to forgive my ex-husband than to forgive the guy who molested me when I was a little girl.  Child molestation affects one’s entire life and all areas of one’s life.  For instance, I truly believe it affected how I looked at marriage and may be one of the reasons I was not successful at being married.  I have a hard time forgiving that man even now.  Years ago, I saw him at a family funeral.  He was all hunched over and it was difficult to walk for him.  He could not have been older than in his 50’s.  I thought to myself “you deserved this for what you did to me!”.  Yes, I felt bad for thinking it, but I could not help thinking God may have punished him in this life for his sin.  He was a son of a church leader and a friend of one of my brothers.  I think I have forgiven him so I could have peace within myself.

One of the steps you can take in working on forgiveness is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  Think to yourself why did they say or do that to you?   Were they hurting themselves and lashed out at you?  Or were they criticizing you for something without being aware of the whole story.  There are lots of reasons people hurt one another.  Understanding the why eases the steps to forgiving the other person.  On the other hand, people who commit serious crimes like murder or rape, may not have a good reason for doing what they did.  Those people we just have to place in God’s hands and ask Him to help us forgive them. 

I started this blog post with a verse that ends forgive as God has forgiven you.  Are you forgiven by God?  God loves everyone and wants to have a relationship with them.  He also knows we make mistakes and sin against Him and others.  He wants to forgive that sin so He sent His Son, who never sinned, to pay the penalty of sin, death, so we might be forgiven.  We only have to ask God to forgive us.  If you have questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section or message me on Facebook.  Otherwise, I am sure any pastor or priest would be happy to discuss this with you. 

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