In the past I have told you that you are not wonderful to forgive, for you are not wonderful to take offense in the first place. Now I will add to this:
Once you have taken offense, who are you to be unforgiving? Who are you to hold on to perceived offense? Of course, there are many versions of this story.
One version is that the ones you are offended against may honestly not have a clue of what they possibly did that offended you. And now it may be that you will no longer talk to them or acknowledge their existence. In this case, beloveds, who is the offender? What crime did they commit that scratched your ego?
Another scenario is that an outright crime was committed against you. Your child was injured. The offense is very clear. And who would not take umbrage? Whether the deed was done deliberately or by accident, the injury to your heart is great.
There can be other less major offenses that may have been deliberate or accidental. Someone snubbed you, so it seems. Maybe they meant to or maybe not. All this is not so clearly evident as a physical injury.
At first, your pained heart wants the other to pay for his real or imagined offense to you. You want him to pay for having injured you to whatever degree he did. You may see the offense as unforgivable.
Anger is anger. Furious is furious. Rage is rage. Whatever the inciting incident, you likely feel: “He can’t do that. He has no right. He cannot treat me or mine this way. Who does he think he is?”
And your wounded heart hardens, and you want to punish him, and so you punish yourself by hanging on to your anger and making yourself unforgiving, as though you have to, as though it is only right for you to harden your heart for all times. And, so, the punisher punishes himself. Who are you not to forgive? Whose heart do you hurt now, beloved?
No matter how right you may feel you are, you cast yourself onto a lower level, and so you hurt yourself. You are looking for retribution. There is no retribution. What is gained by an eye for an eye? How does that help really? The blind lead the blind. You are emulating an offender who by intent or innocence offended you. You take off his cloak, and you put it on. Whether the other is a true villain or not, you copy villainy.
If the other’s offense was murder, you feel murderous. If the other snubbed you, you want to snub him and hurt him back. If another stole from you, you want back what he stole and to take something away from him as well. You would become a thief in your heart.
You know why you want to let go of offense, don’t you? Because you hurt yourself. You stick the knife of retribution into yourself. Somewhere within you, you must release yourself from the sense of offense that you carry. Have mercy upon yourself.
You may feel letting go is impossible for you to do. I ask you, if you must copy others, then copy those who have found it in their hearts to let go and, in some cases, befriend the ones who may have done what, to your mind, is irreparable damage. They came to see that they had to repair the damage. They had to repair it rather than compound it. I speak of cases where grievous harm was done. I speak of cases that are beyond offense to your ego. If others can rise to such great heights, so can you. And so you must.
You must take responsibility for yourself. You don’t have to be unforgiving. You don’t have to hold reprisal in your heart. You have to let go of whatever hurts your heart. Somehow you have to let go of it. Clean slate, beloved. Clean slate. Don’t wring your heart any longer.