The healing power of forgiveness
Margaret Rogers
spirituality.com host: Many studies have shown that how we think about ourselves and our lives makes a big difference to our health. And one quality of thought that has been found to be good for our health is forgiveness. While sometimes people who forgive are thought to be wimps, the fact is that forgiveness can restore relationships and health, and open the door to progress.
Joining me today is Margaret Rogers, a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science who lives in California in the United States. Margaret is also a contributing editor to theChristian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal and to this website.
Margaret, to get us started, would you like to offer some thoughts about forgiveness?
Margaret Rogers: I’d be happy to. And I’m so glad to be joining you all on this very important topic today.
I thought it might help just to begin by defining forgiveness—what it is, and what it isn’t. And very simply, we could say that forgiveness is a giving up of anger, a giving up of resentment or a claim for revenge. And even a giving up of the feeling of being victimized.
I think it’s important also to say what forgiveness doesn’t mean. It does not mean overlooking wrong behavior, or condoning it, or saying it doesn’t matter, or it doesn’t need correction. Sometimes people feel that forgiveness means you’re not saying it needs correcting. But wrong behavior needs correcting.
Forgiveness is a different thing. That giving up of resentment is what’s important to our health. To me, in working for forgiveness in my own life—to forgive others, and to forgive myself—I’ve found that there are maybe three steps that I come back to again and again that are important in the process.
The first one is honesty. An honesty with oneself that anger is hugging suffering to yourself. It’s not doing anything to anybody else, but it is hugging a sense of suffering to yourself. We need to be honest about that.
The second step that I feel is so important is a humility, and a willingness to change. The humility that says, “I can’t seem to forgive by my own willpower. I need help from a higher source, and I’m willing to open up to that higher source, or God, and to change the way I think.”
And then finally, the third step that is so important that I’ve gained from my study of Christian Science is that the thing that will really wipe out a feeling of hurt or blame or condemnation is an understanding of good, an understanding of what good is, and that it’s something you can never lose. Another way of putting that is to yield to God’s truth.
So those three steps may be some things we can develop today. Honesty, humility and an understanding of good that can never be lost, to me are the ways that we can all find forgiveness.
spirituality.com host: Margaret, those are really, really helpful. I’d never heard it put quite that way before.
spirituality.com host: This first question is from Heidi in Fort Lauderdale: “How do we forgive someone who rejects any good that we try to give them?”
Margaret: I know so often we feel that forgiveness has to be an interaction between two people. But it helps to think of forgiveness as something I do within my own consciousness. Not to feel I’ve got to get someone else to change, but “what can I do within myself to give up anger, or a feeling that someone else is to blame?”
So if someone seems to be rejecting all our efforts to reconcile or to bring happiness to them, then the first thing we can do within ourselves is identify that person as a child of God who is receptive to good—not believe that they’re not receptive; not believe that they’re a closed mind. Because if everyone is a child of God, and we are, then everyone has the quality of receptivity to God.
And we don’t have to make that happen—we just have to know that’s the truth about everyone. So that’s where I would start: within my own thought, identifying that person as a receptive child of God.
spirituality.com host: And maybe even identifying oneself as a child of God, too, to be in harmony with others.
Margaret: That’s so good. Because really, if we believe something about anyone, we’re accepting it about everyone. And so we have to start by seeing that God’s child, whether you’re thinking of yourself or someone else, really is the image of God, and is only good. And so whatever thought I hold about myself, I’m holding about someone else, and vice versa. So it’s important to hold only good as the truth about everyone.
spirituality.com host: Thank you. From Stewart in Chicago, we have an interesting question, and it’s a little tricky, but I think it will be fun to answer: “My needs for forgiveness are not one-on-one, but involve groups of people who I think are taking political things in a dangerous direction. How can I find forgiveness?”
Margaret: Oh, that’s a question that I think most of us are asking a lot of the time, because we have such strongly held opinions of what is right and what is just. And it’s very hard to see a group, a leadership, a country going in a direction that we feel is not just. And those stories are in front of us all the time in the news, so we’re surrounded by that continual picture of injustice.
There’s a statement written by Mary Baker Eddy that I’ve been giving a lot more thought to recently. It was something that she wrote in answer to a question that was posed to her by The Boston Post, a newspaper in her time.
She said, “I am asked, ‘What are your politics?’” And she answered, “I have none, in reality, other than to help support a righteous government; to love God supremely, and my neighbor as myself.”
Now that’s something we could talk about for the rest of the hour. But I’ve been asking myself if I can really say, “I have no politics.” That’s a tough one for me, because I’ve always been a real politics-lover. I started getting involved in politics when I was in high school, and I’ve always been very interested in it. And I think it’s a healthy interest.
But when politics leads us into entrenched positions that make us resentful of others, we lose our effectiveness. I’ve found that, over and over again. When I'm incensed and angry, and get into arguments with people, absolutely no good comes out of that. So I’ve had to learn from many hard experiences to try to live above just a human position on something, and try to bring in these elements that Mrs. Eddy mentions.
How can I support a “righteous” government? What’s the best way to support a just government? And I feel that the best way to do that is not through anger, but through willingness to understand, to seek understanding, to express patience and willingness to learn, and to help others learn by your patience.
I get a lot of inspiration from Gandhi and his approach to politics. And there’s a wonderful story about him, when he went to see the governor of a province in South Africa. Many people may not know that Gandhi really began his political career in South Africa rather than India, where, of course, there was racial discrimination.
And he went to this provincial governor, and told him that he was going to oppose the unjust policies of his government. Well, the provincial governor practically laughed him out of the office, because Gandhi was nobody at that time, and here this man was, very important and powerful. And he said to Gandhi, “Oh, you’re going to oppose me? And how do you propose to do that?” And Gandhi answered, with a smile, “With your help.”
Many years later, the provincial governor wrote that that was exactly how Gandhi did it—through respect, unfailing respect for his opponent, gentleness, persuasion, but it was never through anger, never through scorn or putting someone down, that he won people to his positions.
And that is, I think, what Mrs. Eddy is getting at when she talks about supporting a “righteous government.” We want to bring out the good in people. And we don’t do that by offending them and calling them names. We do it by loving the good that’s in everyone, and striving to bring it out. So that’s a challenge I’m striving to live up to every day.
spirituality.com host: That’s just great. Thank you. On this next question, there’s no name or location, but it is a kind of sensitive one, so one can understand: “How can I forgive someone who has repeatedly verbally attacked, maligned and slandered me in front of others, and will not apologize or try to change? How can I continue to work with this person? It’s so tempting, after trying so hard for so long, to just walk away from a group I really care about.”
Margaret: Yes, I know that temptation to walk away is so strong at times. There is not one right answer to how one should deal with situations like that. There may be times when it is right to remove ourselves from a situation.
But I think the only way to know that is maybe to go back to that step I mentioned at the beginning of honesty with oneself—that our real desire in every situation, as a child of God, is to bring healing to it. And with the most honesty we can muster, we can say, “God, how can I help bring healing to this situation?”
This idea that we’re constantly being hurt and slandered of course is very difficult. And yet I think we all can get to the vision that we can have an understanding of our identity that cannot be attacked.
I think Jesus is our example in this. He was continually maligned and misrepresented. And yet he understood who he was. He said it over and over again—“I know where I came from.” He knew he was the Son of God. He knew his mission was to bring love and healing to earth. And in a similar way, we can know that, too.
We are, each of us, sons and daughters of God. We are here because God wants us here to bring light and healing and love to everyone. And nobody can strip us of that worth. Nobody can change the good self that we’ve been given from God.
So I think we all probably need to learn that we’re just not vulnerable to these unjust attacks, and that we can keep going and stick with our God-given mission to bring healing.
spirituality.com host: That’s great. From C.L. in Oregon: “I have found that it is far easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. What can you offer as a sure way to find release from the heavy burden of regret?”
Margaret: Thank you for that question. Yes, I agree. I think forgiveness of oneself is probably one of the toughest things. And the thing that has helped me is really being willing—I use that word again—that willingness to ask for help from a higher source.
It’s to say, “God, what do You know of me? Show me what You know, because You made me. You are my Maker, and You’ve made me an individual expression of Yourself. Show me what that true self is.”
First, that willingness to ask for help. And then to really listen to the answer. The way I listen many times is through study—study of the Scriptures and what God has actually said. And one of the Scriptures that’s helped me tremendously is Jesus’ statement, “I and my Father are one.”
Mary Baker Eddy gives a wonderful explanation of that in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Let me just see, I think it’s page 361 where she says Jesus’ statement “I and my Father are one” means one in quality not in quantity. And then she uses a great visual. She says, “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light is one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being.”
So that’s where I start when I need to forgive myself. I say, “This is what God is telling me about myself—that I’m one in quality with Him, like a ray of light is one with the sun. I can’t be less than what God made me. If a ray of light is one with the sun, then that means it’s the very same substance and quality as the sun. It’s not some different substance.”
And so that’s God’s truth. Now that sure doesn’t feel like the human truth. Most of the time, we feel like we fall way short of being like God. But we’ve got to start with God’s truth—the higher truth than human judgment.
Human judgment is not reliable. God’s judgment is. And if we are willing to start with “what God knows of me,” that’s what’s going to enable us to let go of the things that are not Godlike in our behavior. And it’s really the only thing that gives us the power to let go of them—is to know “that’s not my real nature. My real nature is Godlike.”
spirituality.com host: In a way, you’ve begun to answer the next question which is from J.M., who doesn’t give a location. J.M.’s question is, “Any ideas to help with on-the-spot forgiveness, i.e., in the middle of a serious disagreement?”
Margaret: Yes. I’ll tell you one idea that somebody shared with me that’s been very practical to me. When somebody says something that I really object to, or really disagree with, instead of reacting immediately, which is my tendency and probably true for most of us, I have oftentimes tried to say, “Can you tell me more about why you feel that way?”
Now it’s interesting the effect this has. First of all, it gives me some time to keep quiet myself, to calm myself down. And it immediately says to the person who’s angry at you, or in your face, or whatever, “I respect you. I want to understand what it is that’s bothering you.”
Now I’m not saying this would perhaps be applicable in every situation, but it has many times defused a situation when someone is so angry, to ask them, “Just tell me a little bit more about why you are upset or feel that way.” It shows your care, your love.
And it gives you time, then, to pray—to really ask God for the right answer. You know, the Bible says, “A soft answer turns away wrath.” And sometimes it takes me some time to collect myself to get that soft answer instead of a harsh one. So that’s one way I’ve found to buy a little time.
spirituality.com host: Well, you know what’s neat about that idea is that often in arguments, it’s like a cycle: X snaps at Y, and then Y snaps back, and then X snaps again.
But if X or Y chooses not to do that, but to suddenly ask a seemingly ordinary question like, “Can you tell me more?” it breaks the cycle.
Margaret: Yeah, I think so. And again, it’s not a technique. I know it sounds like it’s just a technique, but I would see that as an expression of self-restraint, first of all, which is a Godlike quality—to govern oneself instead of being a slave to reaction and anger.
And also it’s love. It’s expressing love and respect for the other person, which is the great healer.
spirituality.com host: Absolutely. That is great. From Marilyn, in Maine, we get this question: “Sometimes it seems we have to forgive the same thing over and over. When that happens, how do you get beyond the tired feeling that develops?”
Margaret: Oh, that’s good. Well, that probably goes back to my threesome—the one on humility. When we’re really tired of doing something over and over again, I think it helps to just say to God, “God, I’m willing to do anything that transforms me more into Your likeness.” And if there’s one quality of all the great spiritual teachers I can think of, it’s patience. It’s inexhaustible patience.
Mary Baker Eddy talks about how Jesus “patiently persisted” with his disciples and with those who opposed him. He patiently persisted in living and teaching the truth of God. And so anything that’s causing me to express more patience, I feel is probably doing more for my spiritual growth than anything else. It’s helping to make me walk in the path of Christ.
spirituality.com host: We have a question that’s very similar from State College, Pennsylvania. The individual is asking, “How can we forgive someone’s inappropriate or bad behavior, especially when the person keeps saying they’re sorry, but keeps doing the same bad behavior?”
I was thinking that idea of recognizing the spiritual identity of the person would probably help, don’t you think?
Margaret: Oh, you’re absolutely right. Sometimes, of course, we are an instrument for God’s correcting love. We may be able to say something that helps someone wake up. But I think what comes first is just what you mentioned. We have to be deeply grounded in the truth of everyone’s identity. Otherwise, we’re reacting—so often, we’re reacting in anger.
But we’re working every day to get grounded in the truth that God is the only I AM, the only Ego, the only self-existence, the only Truth. And that creation is God’s expression—or like that ray of light that comes from the sun. Creation is Godlike. It is good. Everyone’s real self is good.
When we’re getting grounded in that every day, then when we’re confronted with a situation of someone’s bad behavior, instead of reacting, we can have that moment of saying, “God, use me, if there’s a way that I can bring healing here. If there’s something I can say.” And we may not even go through that conscious process of asking that, but it will just happen. You will say something that will help to awaken the person.
So I think to really pray that wonderful prayer of St. Francis, “Make me an instrument of Thy peace.” Make me a transparency for the truth and love of God.
spirituality.com host: That’s a wonderful thought. Marge in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, asks, “Isn’t it important to talk things out to come to the truth? Forgiving often is like ignoring truth.”
Margaret: I get this question a lot when I talk to people about forgiveness. They think somehow it’s just, as you say, overlooking or excusing it. It is not that. In fact, the deepest forgiveness, as we’ve been saying, is love—love that sees the individual as God’s likeness, and will not accept anything less than that.
So very often, that kind of love is going to be expressed in honest conversation with someone if we have differences with them, where we really are honest about how we feel, and we’re honest in listening to how they feel, and trying to see and understand how we can work this out together. That need for honest conversation is very real.
What I think we need to say, in addition to that, is often people feel that they’ve tried that over and over again, and that no amount of talking has done it. And that’s where I think we need to realize the power of knowing.
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” And sometimes, if talking hasn’t done it, we just need to be willing to “be still and know” that God is the one and only Mind governing creation. And that God can speak to each of us and cause us to hear the right answer.
spirituality.com host: What about the person who’s maybe scared to talk it out with someone? They’re afraid that if they ask to talk it through, the [other] person will get angry, and they’ll just have another fight.
Margaret: Well, fear is always something that we need to confront with the truth, again, of God’s supremacy and reality. When I’m afraid of something, what that says to me is, I don’t really believe that God is All. I believe that there is some other mind, some other power that could hurt me.
And so that comes back to my own delving into the spiritual realities again, where I just get grounded. I have to start with the idea that God, good, is absolutely the only I AM, the only self-existence. There is nothing else. Like the Bible says, “I am God, and there is none else.” Everything that’s real comes from God. So there can’t be anything real to be afraid of.
spirituality.com host: And so then we can all respond to God, too. The person couldn’t be outside of that ability to respond.
Margaret: That’s right. When we see things from God’s point of view, we won’t be afraid. And there are many examples from our great spiritual visionaries that prove that. I, of course, go back to Jesus again, when he was confronted by his executioner, basically—Pilate, the Roman governor.
Pilate said to him, “Don’t you know I have the power of life and death over you?” And Jesus’ response: “You couldn’t have power over me unless it were given to you of God.”
He knew where his life came from. He knew why he was there. He was there because God wanted him there. And it’s not presumptuous for us to say the same: “My life comes from God. And I’m here because God wants me here. And nothing can have power over me except God.” And I think that’s the way we destroy fear.
spirituality.com host: Dana in New Mexico is asking a question that probably several others are, too: “Coming up to the holidays, I need to prepare myself to visit family. We have a lot of past grievances that we have not yet worked through. Can you suggest ways we could make progress this year, rather than putting it aside yet again?”
Margaret: Oh, yes. In fact, I have a prayer, in a way, that I often say before family gatherings. And it’s based, again, on something that Mary Baker Eddy wrote. She says, “Never desert the post of spiritual observation and self-examination.”
And so before I go to a family gathering, I will often think about those two things. First, let me examine myself, and see if I am holding to the fact that there is one Father-Mother of all identities. And that no one has a bad history. Everyone’s history is as an expression of God. That’s the only truth about everyone. They’re not checkered, they’re not marked by some bad action of the past, but each one is that ray of light coming from God. And I see them that way, I want to see them that way. So that’s the self-examination that can take place.
And then, “Never desert the post of spiritual observation.” And I tell myself that, “I’m going to go and enjoy everyone here, and I’m going to enjoy the festivities and laugh and enter in. But I’m not going to desert the post of spiritual observation, where I’m listening for what God is telling me is true about each one there.” And that’s really seen me through a lot of family situations that might not have been so easy otherwise.
spirituality.com host: That’s brilliant. Bethany of Portland, Oregon, is saying, “I have forgiven someone, but I still have hurtful feelings from the memories. Have I really forgiven if I still feel sad sometimes about the past?”
Margaret: I think none of us has to live with sadness. That’s again that idea of being honest with oneself. Would God ever say, “You’re going to live with sadness for the rest of your life?” No. God would never will that for His children. God’s will for us is joy—to know the reality of good.
So that—we could call it a temptation almost—to think, “Something so bad has happened to me that I’ll never let go of this sadness.” We can be willing, again, humble and willing to change—to say, “I will yield to God’s truth.” And God’s truth is that everything is very good. And keep asking to yield to that and to have no other Mind before the divine Mind.
spirituality.com host: I was thinking about something Mrs. Eddy says about arguing “on the side of happiness,” and addressing that feeling of sadness by literally refusing it.
Margaret: That’s good. That’s right. Again, what’s behind it is, “Somehow I’ve lost something. I had good once, and then I lost it.” But if God is good, we haven’t lost God. We haven’t for a moment been separated from God. God is always present. So we can’t lose our happiness.
spirituality.com host: Emily in Oregon is giving us the opportunity to go into that a little bit more deeply. She says, “Help me understand your third point—‘understanding of good never lost,’ ‘yielding to God’s truth.’ How is good never lost?”
Margaret: We can really zero in on that. The first admission that’s important is, “God is.” And then, “God is good.” That's the place we can always start. There is God. There is this higher reality. And this reality is perfect good. And that is the source of all good.
Everything we’ve experienced in our life that is good—and we all have, we’ve all experienced love to some degree, we’ve all experienced kindness, we’ve all experienced beauty—everything good in our lives, we can begin to see as being an expression of God. It was always that.
It might have seemed like it was in a particular relationship, or in a particular place. But it was always just the eternal God, good, making itself known to us in a way that we could feel. And we can’t lose God.
So even if those circumstances have changed—that relationship isn’t there in the same way anymore—we have not lost the substance of that good. It’s God. And one thing we can always do is open our eyes to, “How is God expressing good in my life today?” because God never stops making Himself/Herself known. God is desiring that we know His/Her presence. So we just keep asking God, “Show me how You are here today.”
spirituality.com host: That’s such a valuable idea. Virginia in New Jersey asks: “When you know someone you love is going down the wrong path, how can I stop feeling anger toward them and toward myself from not being able to help them, and feeling self-blame?”
Margaret: That’s again where we come back to, “Where do we come from?” If we are rays of light emanating from God, then it’s God who keeps us on a good path. God keeps us on course. Even when someone looks like they’re walking down the wrong path, we can know God is their very Mind. They really cannot change their relationship to God. And they will awaken to it.
God is always with us. To me, that’s one of the great lessons of Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son, which of course is used to encourage us in so many ways. But one thing that I love about that parable is that I always picture the first step—I’m sure you all kind of know it, but basically the idea is that a man has two sons and one of the sons says, “I want my inheritance, and I’m going to go spend it the way I want to.”
And he leaves the father’s house with his portion of the inheritance, and gets into terrible trouble—messes up his life totally. And then the Bible says he “came to himself,”—realizes he had it much better in his father’s house, and he goes back, and his father completely forgives him and restores to him his full rights.
Now, to me, one of the things that parable always says is the first step he took away from the father’s house was also the first step back. I picture it like a circle, because there’s no place to go except to God. It’s where we come from. It’s our nature. We can’t walk away from it.
We may feel like we’re trying to walk away from it, but the only thing we’re going to do is what the prodigal son did—we’re going to come to our senses, wake up and realize the Father’s house, or Godlikeness is what we want, and so we’re already on the way back. I’ve often used that when I feel like somebody is going the wrong path. I just think, “They’re right on their way back to the Father’s house.”
spirituality.com host: That is wonderful. Iris in Petaluma, California, is sending us an account of forgiveness. She says, “Fruitful communication with my sister has been difficult lately, and she has lashed out at me verbally several times. The first thing that comes up for me is that I want to respond in kind. After the first day of class this August, I had to call my sister. A friend reminded me before the call that there’s only one Mind at work. Because I was spiritually focused, I was able to just listen to my sister and to respond in a clear way. There was an almost immediate softening on my sister’s part.
“This past weekend, I was down visiting my mother and sister, and at one point, my sister again attacked me verbally. Thankfully, I was graced with the ability not to react with anger, but in a matter-of-fact way. So this was an example of instantaneous forgiveness.
“For me, to forgive someone is to have the ability to stop and listen, and to really see what is going on with the other person. In my sister’s case, I could see that she was stressed out, and that she simply missed the mark in her attempt to communicate. There was no reason for me take what I perceived as an attack personally. My work is just to see that my sister is a reflection of God, and to remember that divine Love is incapable of acting inharmoniously.”
Margaret: Wow. That’s a great example. Thank you.
spirituality.com host: And then Bob in Indiana asks, “What is it really like to have overcome past mistakes? What does it feel like? Do we just rise above the mistake when it comes to mind? Or does it just not come to mind anymore?” And I think from my experience, I’d say it could be both.
Margaret: Yes. Yeah, that’s an interesting one to think about. I’m looking at my own experience, too. And I will say when I think about things I’ve been able to forgive, it’s not that I just forget that it ever happened. Maybe I have—I don’t remember the ones I’ve forgotten.
But I think I look at it more as a time when I learned something about love, when I learned something about truth. And when you look at it as something learned, there’s not a hurt involved. It’s really more of a gratitude for some insight that you’ve gained. And I think we can expect that.
spirituality.com host: I think that’s a very good point. Steffi in Wisconsin is asking, “I always get stressed coming up to Christmas, and feel that I have to be perfect, and make everyone’s Christmas as wonderful as possible. How can I forgive myself in advance if I can’t do this?”
Margaret: Well, it’s certainly a very wonderful desire to want to make a good holiday for someone. So first of all, I’d say don’t be hard on yourself just for the desire. But let’s lift up that desire: where does it come from? We desire to make things happy for others because we’re the expression of divine Love. But the ability to make someone happy only comes from God. They’re that ray of light that comes from the sun. God is their source of happiness.
And so one thing we can do in preparation for the holidays is to acknowledge that more—that God is the source of everyone’s happiness. And no one can take it away from them. No one has to give it to them. They already have it from God. And I’d say that’s the best gift you could give anyone—to know that inseparable connection they have with the source of all good.
spirituality.com host: It doesn’t matter what kind of Christmas presents they get; it’s really back to that inseparable connection, isn’t it?
Margaret: Yes, that’s right. That’s the “unspeakable gift” the Bible talks about—knowing everyone’s oneness with God.
spirituality.com host: From Tamara in Houston: “How can you forgive someone you love who tries to take you off the path that God has planned for you?”
Margaret: I think so often we do encounter that—someone’s almost-jealousy of our spiritual path, or of feeling that we’re leaving them behind, or that our choice of spiritual path somehow opposes what their path is.
But it’s helped me to see that by following God, I can only be a blessing to others, because the closer I am to God, the all-just, the all-compassionate, the all-understanding, the better friend I’m going to be; the better spouse I’m going to be; the better parent I’m going to be.
Closeness to God makes you better at every human relationship, more compassionate. It in no way means we’ve got to push our spiritual path on anyone. We don’t have to try to persuade anybody of what we believe. We really need to live it more than talk it, don’t we? Just live the love, live the understanding.
So even if someone seems to be trying to get us off that path, I think everyone eventually will respond to compassion, patience, love, forgiveness. We can’t help it. It’s so winning.
spirituality.com host: Margaret, I wonder if you would go through the three steps again, because we’ve covered a lot of territory, and we’d just like to return to that point.
Margaret: The first step I see in forgiveness is honesty with oneself—anger or resentment only causes the one who holds it to suffer. Mary Baker Eddy speaks quite a bit on this point in her writings. That we have to be convinced there’s no pleasure or good in sin. Now we may think, “It’s not my sin, it’s the other person’s sin.” But anger is a sin because it separates us from God. When we’re angry, we are not feeling close to God. So that’s a sin—anything that separates us from God.
So the first thing is to say, “Resentment, anger, hurt, is not doing me any good at all.” It’s not accomplishing what it says. It will often say, “Anger makes me feel better,” or, “It’s good to let off steam,” or whatever.
That’s absolutely false. Anger does not make us feel better. It just draws us deeper and deeper into the suffering. So that first honesty—that anger, or un-forgiveness, is not accomplishing anything for me.
Once we’re honest about that, then humility: “God help me. I don’t seem able sometimes to give up anger on my own through human willpower. But I know that with Your help I can do all things. And I’m willing to. I’m willing to exchange my anger for what You know about Your child, what You know about me, and what You know about whoever I think has hurt me.” That willingness to change.
And then the third, and the most important one, the one to spend the most time on, perhaps, is the understanding of good. To begin every day by identifying God as the only Mind, the only reality, the only Truth. And that every single one of us is like a ray of light coming from that goodness.
Our nature is good. We cannot depart from that nature. Everyone’s history is truly only as a child of God. Those three steps will end up just wiping out a sense of the reality of evil, which is what forgiveness is—it’s letting go of a belief that evil is real and powerful.
spirituality.com host: That’s so helpful. We have a question from J.V. in Florida: “Do you have a Bible example you come back to when you need to find forgiveness in your life?”
Margaret: Well, yes, I do. There are many, actually. But the first one that comes to mind is perhaps that greatest of all examples, of Jesus on the cross saying about his persecutors, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And that has helped me so many times, because it’s, first of all, that compassionate understanding that no one would do these things if they really understood God and their relationship to Him.
Nobody would be cruel. Nobody would be unjust if they really understood their relationship to God. In fact, I remember a friend telling me once that what helped him sometimes if someone was very angry at him, or was behaving very badly, is he would picture that, printed across their forehead, was the statement, “I don’t feel God’s presence.”
And you can think, “That should make me feel compassionate toward them. They don’t feel connected to God.” When someone acts cruelly, they’re not knowing their relation to God.
So our response to that, instead of being angry at them, could be to want to help them feel it, perhaps by the way we respond. Perhaps by our patience, our forbearance, our forgiveness, we can help them feel the closeness of God.
So I think that example was exactly what Jesus showed—that he understood that his persecutors simply did not know God, and he forgave them on that basis.
spirituality.com host: From Marty in Ossining, New York: “Sometimes after I’ve forgiven someone, I notice that I no longer trust him or her because I felt betrayed. Does that mean I haven’t really forgiven them?”
Margaret: I’m not sure whether it means that or not. But I think what we can do is find our confidence, our security, our trust in God. I’m just thinking out loud here, but there may be reasons why we should not always trust people. It may be that they have not been redeemed or corrected in their human behavior and thought to the extent that they are trustworthy yet.
And so we don’t just want a blind trust in people. But we do want a complete trust that God, the source of all wisdom, will guide us in right relationships. And that we will discern what we need to know. If someone is not trustworthy, that’s not condemning them. It’s simply being wise not to put trust where trust has not yet been deserved.
But that doesn’t mean that we hate them or that we are angry at them—we’re simply wise. And that, of course, is a help to them. It’s not a help to keep being fooled by people. That doesn’t help them.
So I think we want to know that our safety, our ability to hear God’s direction, will always be with us. And in listening to God, we will not be deceived, and we will not be enablers of others who are trying to deceive us.
spirituality.com host: That is a great answer. This question is from John in Maine: “What about when CIRCUMSTANCES,” and the word circumstances is in all caps, “versus people creating difficult times? How do you forgive circumstances?”
Margaret: Let’s see if I understand that question. What do you think, circumstances being an event, perhaps?
spirituality.com host: Well, that could be an event, or a situation where someone has inadvertently been injured, for example, or been in an accident, maybe?
Margaret: Okay, where you couldn’t put blame on a person, but on circumstances. I guess, to me, the first thing is that knowledge or understanding of good—that third step I spoke of, where we are willing to acknowledge that God is absolutely in control of His universe; that no matter what accident or untoward circumstance seems to have happened, there was never a moment when God was not in control, when God was not the supreme power.
And that understanding can correct a mistake. People have been healed of injuries by understanding that an accident was never the reality in God’s universe. If you read the Christian Science periodicals, you'll find many accounts of healing from just that basis. When accidents or injuries have taken place, people have found healing through the knowledge that God was always in control. And that that accident, as real as it felt, was never God’s truth, was never the reality of God’s creation. And that can wipe out the effects of that accident.
spirituality.com host: The next question is from Mike in State College, Pennsylvania: “If we truly forgive, are we a believer in, or liver of, pacifism?” And his example is, “Can we truly forgive the 9/11 terrorists?” And that just ties right in with what you were saying.
Margaret: Yes. Again, to forgive, if we define it as giving up anger, what point is there in being angry at terrorists? Who does it hurt? It hurts me because it separates me from God. When I’m angry, I’m not feeling God’s power and control. And the most help I can be to the world is as one who knows God’s supreme power; who knows that God is the Mind of everyone; who knows that evil is not reality, it’s not intelligence, it’s just a supposed opposite of God, that has no power.
So forgiveness enables me to be clear as to God’s power and control, and that makes me powerful to accomplish good; whereas lack of forgiveness makes me helpless, because it separates me from God.
spirituality.com host: This question is from Gloria in Turkey. It brings us back a little more to personal forgiveness: “Is it possible that forgiveness of yourself can help you change your behavior and your habits so that you lose excess body weight, for example?”
Margaret: I think this brings us back to the subject of forgiveness and its relationship to health. Everything, ultimately, is mental, isn’t it? We think of things as so physically caused. But because the nature of God is infinite Mind, then every one of us is really made up of thoughts. If a ray of light comes from the sun, it’s made up of what the sun is. If we are rays of infinite divine Mind, we’re made of God’s thoughts. And God’s thoughts are beautiful. God’s thoughts are self-governed. God’s thoughts are loving. God’s thoughts are satisfied.
So as we begin to align ourselves more with that Mind divine, then any thoughts that are not like that Mind will just have to drop away. And that would bring health in all ways. I think that’s a very good connection you’re making.
spirituality.com host: This one is from Bob in Indiana: “I sometimes feel I need to not forgive someone to teach them a lesson; I’m going to play God. How does trusting God heal this approach?”
Margaret: Well, I think the very fact that you can ask that question shows a great deal of honesty with yourself already. That concept, that I have to correct someone, is starting from a premise without God. It’s saying, “There’s this faulty mortal here, and I have to correct him.”
And we’ll never really get to healing when we start from that premise, because if you start with imperfection as the reality, you never get to perfection. But if you start with God as the source of everyone’s identity, and therefore everyone must be perfect in reality, you will get to healing, you will get to wholeness, because you will be acknowledging that that is what must already be the truth.
And so I think that’s where you can let go of a personal responsibility to correct someone, and let the truth, like Jesus said, the truth will set us free. Let the truth do it.
spirituality.com host: That’s great. Anne in Portland, Oregon, is saying, “I have forgiven someone, but we've never talked about what happened. Sometimes I feel hurt because my friend has never acknowledged her behavior. She has never said she’s sorry for what she did, and sometimes I wonder if she realizes what she did to hurt me. How can I let go of this desire to talk to her about the past situation?”
Margaret: That, I think, is very common. But it is that same idea of just trusting each one to God, that God is the teacher. I love the Bible’s metaphor, God is “our shepherd.” And the shepherd guides the sheep, the shepherd corrects, the shepherd does everything that’s needed for the sheep.
And we need to be willing to turn ourselves and others over to God, and just know, “I don’t have to see what goes on with that individual. I may never see what goes on in their own individual repentance and regeneration.” But God takes care of that. And that way we honor the Creator.
spirituality.com host: That is so super. And here is a report of healing. Sally in Ohio tells us, “I’ve been healed of a sore ankle through the truths shared today. Thank you.” And we thank you, Sally, for letting us know.
So Margaret, I wondered if you could offer some final thoughts for us.
Margaret: Well, thank you for all the wonderful questions. I do have two thoughts. One, again, from Mary Baker Eddy that has helped me so much. A simple statement she made: “Love your enemies, or you will not lose them; and if you love them, you will help to reform them.”
And I love that idea, because we think of loving our enemies sometimes as just impossible. And yet, if we want to lose them, the only way is to love them, to see them as Jesus did—as perfect children of God. And by doing that, we will help to reform them.
And then the second thought is, forgiveness is actually our nature. We cannot resist it. Forgiveness of ourselves, and forgiveness of others, is our Godlike nature. God is all-merciful, all-just, and we reflect that. So we just can’t hold on to resentment, and it can’t hold on to us. And that’s a wonderful promise to go forward with.
spirituality.com host: Well, Margaret, you’ve just been wonderful, and I’m so grateful. And I hope you all will check out Margaret’s articles on the Web site by searching for “Margaret Rogers.” And you can also find other articles on forgiveness by searching on that word. Margaret, thanks again.
Margaret: Thank you.
Citations used in this chat
Science and Health
King James Bible