To forgive means to let go. When you forgive, you are not committing a great act of charity. You are simply letting go.
I speak to you now mainly of everyday errors that you take personally and therefore make important to you, and yet you know they are insignificant.
If someone knits you a sweater, and you discover that there is a dropped stitch in the sleeve, would you feel it necessary to forgive them for that? You wouldn’t even think their error need forgiveness. You would not think something happened that you needed to forgive. You would not think that you stood above someone else. You would not think that forgiving made you a King and the forgiven a subject! Your realization that someone made an error on a sweater they knitted for you wouldn’t make you high and mighty, ennobling you as if forgiveness were a sacrifice placed on a high altar! You would not think you were a King who knights his subjects. You would not pin a medal on a knitter who drops a stitch and so call attention to his error!
Most of the things that offend you are no more than a dropped stitch. You say, “Oh, no, God, this was much more than that!” And you go on repeating a story you have already told yourself a dozen times. You must enjoy it or why would you repeat it to yourself so often and with so much fervor?
If you are aggrieved, you are the aggriever.
Beloveds, who are you to take offense? By what right do you deign to decide that their words and snubs are an offense? Who made you the judge of the world to point out its errors? Who told you to look for error? Who told you to count and weigh what someone else has done or said that you may not like? What gave you the idea that you are entitled to think of others as ungratefuls who have not repaid you for your wonderfulness?
You must think you are very good indeed to accuse someone else of being not good enough, accusing them in your heart and mind of being so bad that you, from all your wisdom and generosity, will kindly forgive them! Who appointed you the appraiser of anyone else? By what act of God do you set yourself above others that you are to forgive them? Do I shake your belief in forgiveness?
In your heart, ask those who have offended you to forgive you for trespassing upon their lives. Ask them to forgive you for condemning them. Ask them to forgive you for being quick to take offense. Ask them to forgive you for your neediness.
And now, beloveds, forgive yourself, and you will perceive no need to forgive your brother. You had forgotten Truth. You dropped a stitch in your knitting of life. And now you pick up the stitch and you move on.
Let not aggrievement be your error. Have no error. Do not be so quick to fault yourself either, for you also are My beloved child, and you deserve better.
And do you think that I am talking to someone else and not to you? I assure you that I am talking to you.
One who commits an error has committed it in your perception. In the everyday offenses you take, if you had been really happy on the day you took offense, would you have? If you were happier, how much notice would you have taken of anyone else’s omissions or commissions? If you had just won a million dollars, how much would you care about what Joe or Fred said or did? Would you give it a second thought?
What if, on the sad day you designated someone as an offender, your true love had come to you and you plighted your troth, what then would you perceive as an offense to your ego?
Beloveds, you do have your own True Love. There is no cause for you to take offense. Do not do it any longer. Do not do it even once more.