[The following is a reworked reprint of my post of December 30, 2019.]
When we feel the hurt, anger...less-than...inflicted by another's remarks or actions, that wound is not ours to fix but ours to forgive. It is the other's to atone for, but in the instant of pain...resistance...it is ours to forgive.
The hard lesson learning is the minute we respond in kind or natter at all about the hurt, we have a self-inflicted wound.
A self-inflicted wound makes a mockery of forgiveness in the wash of ego's "poor, pitiful, put-upon me." With ego riding herd, the hurt feels justified by our retelling, but more by each resistant thought. All rethinking, retelling is ego seeking the balm of self-sympathy, not to mention pay back the originator...if only in our own mind.
Comes enlightenment: Our hurt continues because our wound is being self-inflicted. We stop the hurt by praying not for the originator, who may well be happy as a pig in pig heaven, but for our thoughts...maybe thoughts of thank you to God for the opportunity to bless the originator.
Again: The proof that we have turned our will and our life over to the care of God is our act of forgiveness...the grace of forgiveness that flows from us without our will attached.
Thank you.
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