Choosing to Forgive

Forgiveness.
That word alone holds a bounty of freedom in it's choosing.

When you have been wronged, it is easy to hold on to the pain, bringing it up in your mind over and over again so that you stay angry, turning the people that have hurt you into monsters in your mind.

Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.  Ephesians 4:26+27 asks this of us.

The question then is, am I turning hurt into hatred? Am I confusing anger with bitterness? Am I holding on to this wrong doing to cause my offender the same betrayal that I experienced?

With the recent celebration of Easter, the words that Jesus spoke while He was dying on the cross have been circling my mind. "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they do."
I always saw this a Jesus himself forgiving them for what they were doing to Him. But, he was rather showing his forgiveness by asking His father to do the same. As God in heaven was watching His Son die on the cross for our sins, that's got to be the height of all offences right? Watching the innocent die for the guilty. Allowing injustice to be played out for the benefit of the undeserving.

Having recently watched an innocent that I love being stabbed by the sword of hatred and bitterness, I can understand on a comparatively minuscule scale of what God must have felt watching His son being crucified.

I don't want to forgive. I would rather hold out and punish those who have wronged our family.
But to be a follower of Jesus, I need to release it.

I need to let go and forgive.
I can do this without confronting, and rubbing salt in the already gaping wounds.
Jesus didn't. He just forgave.