Article September 26, 2011 Issue

Breaking the chains of resentment

By Aimee Hermanson

The soft glow of the street light poured into the bedroom. I looked at the clock and saw that it was well past midnight. Sleep was not coming easily. I was spending yet another late night in anger, wondering if I could ever find forgiveness for someone who had been unkind to me. I replayed events in my head, thinking about what I should have said, or maybe still could say, to this person. I was eager to see this individual repent, or, more important, apologize, for being so unkind.

What was truly keeping me up, though, was knowing that the apology would never come. I saw that I was going to have to face a great challenge: to forgive someone who seemed to have no sense of remorse.

Forgiveness had never come easily for me. Often, when I had been forgiving in the past, I would find myself hurt all over again. I came to assume that to forgive meant “please, keep being unkind to me; I’m a Christian, so I’ll happily take the persecution.” I did not care for that, and as a result it felt safer just to cut the person out of my life to spare myself from future harm. But, there, in the quiet of that late night, I knew that my life would only be complete when I found peace in my thought and reached out to God to find that peace. It was becoming clear to me that I needed to move forward and seek a new understanding of forgiveness.

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