A World Without Forgiveness? Can we forgive and love even the deepest of harms, suffering, and hurt?

Can you imagine a world without forgiveness? What would it look like world wide? What would it look like in your own community? What would it look like in your own home? What would it look like in your heart? What would it look like in the presence of your God if there were no forgiveness?

In this video Thich Nhat Hanh gives me an "aha" moment. He talks about how only true understanding can bring about true forgiveness. He says that having a willingness to forgive is not enough. That you cannot truly understand and forgive until you see the person/s who caused the harms side and see their suffering. This is what then gives you the compassion to truly forgive and love them. My "aha" moment is this is what God is so capable of doing. He sees us with complete, compassion, understanding our sufferings, fears, etc. which played a part in our wrong doing. God has complete and full compassion which is what allows Him to forgive us so easily. When we can see someone else from God's eyes then it's not a problem to forgive someone no matter how great the injury they caused us. I'm not saying it's easy or instant, just right and possible. The compassion allows us to forgive and love the person.





Without forgiveness, there would be no hope. It would literally be a destructive chain of suffering.
One of my favorite books is called Left to Tell. It is a story of forgiveness. Suffering can elevate us or it can hang us over the pits of hell waiting to cut line at any minute. The choice is ours.

Forgiveness can be done with the architecture of never letting it happen again. It is a deep process of the heart and you need to honor the betrayal, the hurt, the damage, and such. Forgiveness is not sentimental, it is from the heart. It is a tearing of the closeness of the heart. Sometimes the hurt is what brings us back to what matters most, to love to life, to God. Seeing the other person with compassion can teach us many lessons.

Those who forgive the most and the deepest are of the most holy. They are the most like God. I believe this is true because they are also the ones who will be the most forgiven.