Being a Good Example, part two: Forgiveness

It's the hardest thing we deal with as Christians.  It keeps us up at night.  It's the thing that we battle with years after we say we've done it.  Cause how could you ever forget little girl who in the first grade pushed you over and told you that you were stupid because you wrote your "C's backwards?  Or your best friend throughout all of Elementary School who one day told you that you weren't cool enough to be her friend?  Or that girl from high school who said she couldn't be friends with you because you weren't "Christian" enough?  Or the boy in college who would not dance with you because you weren't conservative enough.  I ask you- how does one forgive that?

Then again how does anyone ever forgive me?  How do you forgive me for saying what pops into my head?  How do you forgive me for the things I intentionally forget to do?  How do you forgive what I think?  How do you forgive?

When I started writing this I was in Roswell, far and away from my computer.  I learned my lesson.  Never leave home without it.  The second day of the Roswell trip was also the 30th anniversary of the first assassination attempt of Blessed John Paul II.  He was shot in the abdomen by Mehmet Ali Agca.  Agca was restrained by a nun and the Pope was rushed into the Vatican and then the hospital.  Months later, Pope John Paul visited his would be assassin in prison.  They spoke privately for some time and afterwards the Pope said,

"What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust.″

When I think of this I am reminded of a poem I wrote in college, "You came to save.  You lived to die.  If You forgave, I guess so can I."  Maybe the whole point of forgiveness is that it isn't easy.  It's something we have to work at and sometimes it is a daily act of moving past the past.  So I ask everyone out there to just let it go.  Everyone has something that is holding them back, keeping them from living their life, and causing them physical pain.  I can't say that I am particularly good at forgiving and forgetting, but I know that if I don't try it will eat me up inside.  I can't speak for everyone else, but perhaps the act of trying will give us the grace to eventually succeed.  Give forgiveness a chance, if for no other reason, than to be a good example.