Who have you forgiven?

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FiveLinden

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Thinking about the Lord’s prayer: who have you forgiven?
 
I have forgiven many people, even those who have hurt me greatly. By not forgiving, hanging on to the resentment & bitterness hurt me far more than it ever hurt the other person.
 
So true.And when hurt happens there is a ripple effect of how one responds.
I often quote my mum 🙂 “Don’t let the bad spread”
 
I try to forgive every offense on my mind when I say the Lord’s Prayer. And those I forget or imagine.
 
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I try to forgive all the people who have ever hurt me or made me feel sad or upset. Since I had loving parents whose faults are easy to forgive (especially now that they have passed away), most of my forgiveness involves relationship partners, friends, relatives, schoolmates and workmates who acted like jerks, plus the occasional person who gets out of line on some Internet forum.

There are a small handful of people in my life who acted in such a hurtful way that forgiveness took me years. Even having forgiven, I do not forget the wrong, and I avoid the people if they are still in my circle of friends. This is for self-protection; I avoid people who I feel are not healthy for me to be around. In a couple of cases the avoidance is mutual.

When people do not commit the offense to me personally, for example a murderer, child abuser or animal abuser who did not harm any family or friend of mine but I just read about them doing some horrible crime, I don’t feel it’s my place to “forgive” them, but I do try to pray for them and ask God to have mercy on them. The more upset the act makes me feel, the more I try to pray for them because I heard that when God puts some really annoying or difficult person into your path, it is because they need your prayers.
 
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“The more upset the act makes me feel, the more I try to pray for them because I heard that when God puts some really annoying or difficult person into your path, it is because they need your prayers.”

This I must really try and remember Tis Bearself,thank you.
 
I had a very bad and damaging time at secondary school and there were a lot of people that I have had to forgive. It look a lot of years and not having any contact with them helped.
 
Someone whom I thought was a friend asked me for a large loan (equivalent to about $20,000 at the time) for a short-term business deal. I’d just sold a house and had the money, I gave it to her.

Didn’t ask for it back straight away as she kept saying it would soon be repaid. She and her husband than engineered an argument with me, cut contact and very soon moved away, leaving no trail.

It was about 10 years ago that this happened. For a while, I was very bitter as I needed that money. Now, I’ve just let it go and I’ve forgiven them. They were dishonest people who told a lot of lies. What goes around comes around.
 
I actually don’t think about forgiving murderers in the press, world events. That is interesting. To me this prayer is definitely about forgiving in my life - transgressions as I perceive them. Sometimes I am wrong about that too. (also I transgress against others) Evil committed in the world beyond that I leave to God. I guess I have the strength to pray for those on this scale, but in reality I am usually too horrified by the evil they commit. That is the big leagues for me. God’s job. I need all my energy for my own sphere. I wish I had a larger view here, but I don’t. I will try. If I think of murderers or terrorists as victims of evil I get further but personal responsibility is always there too. You are with Jesus or against him.
 
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FollowChrist34 said:
Evil committed in the world beyond that I leave to God. I guess I have the strength to pray for those on this scale, but in reality I am usually too horrified by the evil they commit.
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The real point about being part of the “church militant” is that you pray against evil. Even if it’s just saying rosaries to protect the world from nuclear war, or from crazy dictators like the Kim Jong Ils, Stalins and Saddam Husseins of this world.
We pray this every time we say an Our Father. “Deliver us from evil”. That means all the evil out there. Not just what is on my block.

But if I’m going to forgive people, then unless Stalin killed my family members or forced us to move, it’s kind of pointless for me to forgive him as I am not suffering due to his sin. I would have to go forgive the world leaders who actually may have done harm to my family or ancestors. Like for example, forgiving the Japanese for killing my uncle in WWII, that sort of thing.
 
Agree but I think you might be on the right track in the larger sense that all evil is a transgression against Christ. We probably are supposed to pray for the victims of all evil acts, and all of the evildoers. Years ago I put together a standard prayer for the victims of evil everywhere all time past present and future - I actually call it my standard prayer - but note how the evildoers are left out. I would be lying if I said I could pray for them in any meaningful sense. I hand that to God. Maybe in the future I will get there. I use the Lord’s Prayer though for just my situation. It is very helpful to me for clearing out grievances, transgressions committed by and against me. It works. Sometimes the grievances come back but I can control, lessen their effects on me by saying this prayer. I love it.
 
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When you realize that forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, there is no reason not to forgive anyone.
 
All that have seemingly ‘trespassed against me’, but most of all, myself for being human…
 
FollowChrist34 said:
We probably are supposed to pray for the victims of all evil acts, and all of the evildoers.
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Sure we are. The Divine Mercy “Have mercy on us, and on the whole world” pretty much does that. So does the invocation I was taught to say after the Sign of the Cross at the end of prayers: “Jesus, have mercy on the souls in purgatory and the souls on earth.” That covers everybody in need of mercy.

We can pray for God to have mercy on anyone, anywhere, anytime, unless the person is in Heaven and doesn’t need help anymore. That’s basically praying for God to forgive the person.

If I’m personally going to give my forgiveness to a person, they have to have done something to me or mine though, or it’s pretty empty.

Let’s say I meet a cop killer in prison. I can pray, "May God have mercy on you and may God forgive you for what you did. " I can’t say “I forgive you” since that’s reserved for God and the family and friends and fellow officers who were personally affected by the cop’s death.
 
Just recently I have been having a hard time been able to forgive some people whom I thought had had an effect on the course my life took i, and that in the end and as a result of that caused me to drift away from family and friends , and made me afraid of being myself for a long time.
I have been trying to come to terms with what happened and it is definitely not easy , since like I said it cause me also to make/take some desicions paths that otherwise I could have not taking.
So how to forgive that , well , I am pretty sure that those people didn’t see in me someone who was so much loveable, or even were afraid of me , and my ways.
But I’ve seen others being treated the same way (or even worst) and I either did nothing about it ,or consented.
Cause if I am honest all those times I have been put to the test,I might have let someone down myself , do why is it so hard? , Why time and time again we go back to those hurtful moments, maybe because those moments has turned us into what we’ve become!
 
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