A Beatitude, and forgiveness revisited

I've been thinking about this agreement that my therapist and I have reached about what forgiveness is.  I am finally starting to see it develop more fully in regard to my attitude toward myself and the resulting decisions I make.  But I think there's value in articulating its implications a little more.

When I shared with him what I last wrote on this topic, he observed that we were much on the same page, but he would phrase it a little differently: forgiveness is "the decision to let go of the hurt."

That is such a simple concept to express, yet is so challenging to apply to the deepest hurts we experience (or, for that matter, inflict).  It can also be a difficult balance to strike.  It isn't a denial that we've been hurt, nor is it ignoring how the hurt has affected us.  In fact, both those things interfere with true forgiveness.  Yet expressing forgiveness in terms of deciding to let go of the hurt reminds me that I have sometimes neglected an important aspect when I have tried to forgive.

I can't have forgiven if I continue to protectively wrap myself around my pain.  It's as if I'm willing to let the offender off the hook, but not myself.  It's an approach rooted in the obligation to forgive, but without the grace of the healing that true, complete forgiveness brings.

Ah: and when I'm responding to the wrong that I myself have done and come to despise or regret, this can be a great tool for perpetuating my self-flagellation.

The thing is, forgiveness is a process, and even if we're committed to that process it can take years to get there.  There isn't any value in beating ourselves up over not having finished with it yet.  But sometimes we treat our pain as something to which we're entitled because of the terrible thing that was done to us, or the awful thing we've done.  It's probably true that we have every right to embrace our resulting brokenness.  Still, as long as we protectively hug our hurt close to our bosom rather than at least trying to let it go, we hold ourselves back from walking more fully into the complete healing that is God's ultimate gift to the merciful.

Without being hard on myself in the process, today let me choose again to let go of my hurts, and thereby more fully forgive those who have inflicted them . . .