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When unforgiveness encamps your heart

It is easy to forgive when the person acknowledges the mistakes he or she had done against you, repents and asks for forgiveness. But, what if the person will display no signs of remorse? What if he or she will act as if blinded of your hurts? How about if he or she can still flash the widest smile and there you are containing your emotions attempting to explode? Will forgiveness make sense if you extend it? How about if he or she keeps on moving in the cycle of worldly grief? Just being sorry whenever he or she is caught then later does the same thing all over again. How can you outstretch undeserved kindness and love? More so, how will you deny yourself of all the justified reasons to actually hate and get bitter, to take a vengeful act for that matter, to return the same kind of hurt or perhaps more than that? Will you?

I, myself, am never an exception. Despite the knowledge of what the Bible commands “to forgive not seven times but seventy-seven times,” I am limited. As a person, I am very much limited. I run out of patience, of kindness, of love. The reality of my nature actually speaks so much of my desperation of God. I can hold grudges in my heart. I do not easily forgive. In fact, I easily hate.

When I came to know Jesus and submitted to follow Him, that’s when self-control was all the more being tested in fire. A lot of times whenever I am angry and that spills out from my mouth, afterwards, I find myself nauseated with my own doing. Why? It’s because even if nobody sees it or everybody accepts it because it is valid for one’s sake, deep within the recesses of my heart, I know God is the witness. I can never hide anything from Him. I am accountable to Him.

I praise God because He does not rush. He is the One who remains patient even if I get impatient with myself. Every time I am consumed with my emotions and actually fail to please Him, I still have this confidence to run to Him, to pour out all my rants at His feet, to just be wounded before Him. The ultimate assurance that He accepts me even if I am the worst version of myself.

So, how do you forgive the unforgivable? As for me, it is like nailing myself all over again for the wrong things I have done. Feeling all the pain, all the guilt and shame brought about by my own sins. Recalling once again every detail of how I committed one sin after the other despite of clear awareness of it. All because as for me I have to get to the point of humility, of declaring to myself how filthy rag I am, and if not because of God rescuing me, redeeming me, and making me whole and pure again, I will not be able to extend the same forgiveness to others.

To encapsulate it in one word, it is LOVE. It is the radical and unconditional love of my Almighty Father that compels me to make a choice to reach out to the person who deeply hurt me. It is His love that causes me to deny myself with all the rights this world is presenting to me and to take up my own Cross even if it hurts just so I can fully and completely follow Him.

Love does not just forgive if the person repents. Love endures, forbears, and hopes. Yes, the radical part of forgiving somebody is that while the person is doing his or her thing against you, you have to choose to bless the person. To endure the possibilities of whether transformation will happen or not because you are neither doing it for yourself nor for the person, you are totally surrendering it to the Lord.

It comes with a cost but that is where God can come across. Let faith arise!


But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8




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