what is the hardest thing you had to forgive?

[ayin jade]

Do you struggle with forgiving someone something? What is the hardest thing you had to forgive? What made it hard to forgive?

[Estrella]

Yes i do. But most often, i struggle at forgetting rather than forgiving. I could easily forgive someone from afar but forgetting is hard. From afar meaning, if someone actually comes to me and asks for forgiveness, i would easily forgive and forget as the person has come clean about it. However, i probably cant forget people who have hurt me but never resolve the matter to me. As time goes by, i probably will forgive, but i don't think i can forget. The pain n hurt will still be there. Of course, it depends entirely on the circumstances as well.

[Guest]

Um . . . probably my first wife leaving me for another man and her adulteries? Not sure, maybe I am forgetting something . . .I've been beaten up and left unconscious, 3 times, having done nothing at all to provoke an attack. Seems hard to believe, must be I used to wear a "hurt me" sign.

 

Once I became proficient in martial arts, this stopped happening, probably carried myself with more confidence. . . . maybe there is something worse but those are the only things that come readily to mind where someone has wronged me in any significant way.

 

Let's see, I have been swindled out of significant money a few time, about $10,000 on one occasion.

 

However, I don't recall those being difficult to forgive, stuff happens in life, you just shrug it off and move on, and I was not even a believer any of those times. 

 

Hopefully, as a believer, should someone wrong me again, it will also be easy to forgive. Perhaps, not even waiting until after ones ordeal, Jesus forgave WHILE He was on the cross, that is our model I think, that is who we imitate, after all, He has forgiven us, it is proper to forgive others.

 

Many passages of scripture appear to link our forgiveness, with out willingness to forgive, there is a sort of tension between that, and the idea that we have been forgiven, by Christ's action, His sacrifice on our behalf.

 

I think the answer to this tension, lies in the fact not that we forgive, in order to be forgiven, but because we are forgiven, God has given us a heart of flesh so believers DO forgive.

 

It is like the works things, we do not work to earn forgiveness, those who are His, produce works, that is in our new nature.

 

Addendum: Oh, I just reread the O.P., and it was asked: "Do you struggle to forgive?"   I guess I would have to answer: "No!"

Edited May 10, 2015 by Omegaman
added addendum

[wingnut-]

As far as forgiving others, the most difficult for me was in forgiving my ex wife for leaving me for another man.  I find it hardest though to forgive myself, for things I have done or said that hurt others.

[other one]

Do you struggle with forgiving someone something?

 

Personally no I don't.....           and it's probably because I have needed to be forgiven for a short time in my life of things I don't even want to think about....   short term stupidity and knowing you have been forgiven by both God and others for many things during that year or so makes it very hard not to forgive when people really do ask for forgiveness.

 

If my wife was unfaithful it would be impossible to forgive unless God himself did something......   and being a reason for divorce, that's one thing that I'm not sure he asks us to forgive...

[another_poster]

The most difficult thing is forgiving myself. I've done some things i'm not proud of and will probably never share.

I am confident that while I am still in the process I will eventually fully forgive my ex wife. It can be hard when I look at the awful accomodation my son and I are in. I have had civil conversations with her which at one point in time would not have been possible. Today here in Oz is mothers day and for the first time I was pleased that at church they honoured all the women and prayed for them. Last year some time I was happy to hear about a couple getting engaged when a couple of years before that my response was I hope you break up and become as miserable as me. There are several different things that once caused very different responses including hatred that simply are not there now. So I am reminded that I am being healed and with that forgiving more. I don't think it is a case of my past forgiving of my wife being insincere but rather God just geting me to deal with it bit by bit.

 

Let us not give up hope and remember that God is making us into new creation.

[bubbles baloo]

the hardest thing  to forgive was my molestors to forgive them and my rapist to forgive him . 

[JohnD]

Myself.

 

I find forgiveness easy in one sense in that I take few things personally.

 

I get angry, sure, but I do not presuppose I should be gleeful my whole life through and that people have such good natures that it is wrong of me to get angry...

 

I have been betrayed by many people over the years but since I invested in extremely few as "friends" only one or two really stung. But I got over it. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean going back to the way it was as if nothing had ever happened...

 

I may be quirky in this belief... but to me the many acquaintances I have are only that, not "friends." When I am a "friend" to someone I am a fiduciary. And I expect no less from one who is my "friend." Once that is betrayed, one cannot become a fiduciary again. Not holding a grudge / harboring unforgiveness... just a fact of reality. 

 

I can count on one hand how many friends I have had in my 54 years... two passed away... two are no longer friends...

 

That being said, I find forgiving myself most difficult when I fail or cave in or just sin. I read Romans 7:14 - Romans 8:21 often (along with Proverbs 28:13, Psalm 51, 1 John 1:1 - 1 John 2:17, Proverbs 24:16, Psalm 23) and bask in God's forgiveness... but I am hard on myself (which I consider contriteness rather than pride).  Some may disagree, and at times I feel the Holy Spirit encouraging me (leading me to passages like Isaiah 54:8-10 / John 16:27). And I do eventually forgive myself.

 

But I believe also if we judge ourselves here and now we will not be judged in the day of judgment (1 Corinthians 11:31).

 

So the self-esteem preachers need to consider this too.

[Estrella]

I don't know why, but suddenly i feel so disturbed when i read how most of you go through painful divorce...how your ex wives cheated on you. I am a woman, a wife and a mother myself. I have been betrayed numerous times in life so i feel the pain. But nothing compares to the pain of being betrayed by a person who took a vow of till death do us apart. Sorry, i know this is off topic but ohhhh.. Im really feeling the pain.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Tanusha

[JohnD]

A woman, whose name escapes me now, suffered through a Nazi concentration camp as a child, lost most of her family including her brother who she was closest to... spoke of later life when her husband announced he was leaving her for another woman. She said her husband hurt her more than the other losses she survived.