Everybody wants to love and be loved, but pain, fear and anger can really get in the way. Forgiveness is the way back to love when anger has taken over.
Here is how the process seems to work:
- Love–it all seems to start with love. Police officers will tell you the most dangerous call they can make is domestic violence. That’s because in the family, there’s more love, therefore more vulnerability, more chance of being hurt, more fear and therefore more anger. Love is where it begins, and if you are able to forgive, that is also where it ends.
- Then there’s always pain–if there’s a lot of love, somebody’s going to get hurt. That’s just part of life, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
- Because of the pain, there’s fear and anxiety. This is totally natural, but you need to be aware of it so that it doesn’t take over and make you “blind.”
- Next comes anger, because it is a powerful, protective emotion that comes straight out of fear, pain and love. Anger is not wrong–it’s actually totally natural. But most of us don’t know how to express anger in healthy ways, so it comes out in harmful ways.
- Now we need to forgive–because it all started with love, right? This is the hard part–it’s easy to love, get hurt and be angry, right? So, now let’s really get into what it means to forgive.
That process we just talked about is a familiar one we’ve all been through. It is common. Forgiveness–true forgiveness–is not so common.
