On the road to Reconciliation:

Forgiveness. The magic word.And perhaps the most misunderstood word of all time in the English language.

Most people tend to equate forgiveness with reconciliation. They think forgiving is to resume the original state of the relationship, the same trust, the same love just as it was before. However forgiveness is just a step and reconciliation is the journey.

To forgive means to let go. It means I will not harbor what you did in my heart anymore. I will not hold it against you and I will not bring it up in the next argument to poke at your wounds. To forgive does not mean to forget. It means that the deed is done with, I have let it go and I will not seek revenge even petty revenge for what you once did. Forgiveness is hard though. When that bad memory crops up you consciously have to make the decision to forgive again. When Jesus said that you have to forgive seventy times seven times I don't think he meant the number of offences. Sometimes you have to forgive the same person for the same deed over and over again. Some days are good when you feel peaceful and you are willing to forgive. On bad days you want to be petty and unforgiving. Forgiveness is a constant everyday battle for some of us, when we wake up in the morning we have to consciously reforge the decision to forgive.

Reconciliation is however something altogether different. Reconciliation means that the slate is clean, your past is erased. Reconciliation means Reunion. Once again we enjoy the original state of friendship, the same trust once more, the same love we once shared. Reconciliation is what happens in the confessional. When Jesus wipes my past clean, when he says its all forgotten and once again the heavenly friendship is resumed just as it was before. Jesus does not merely forgive, he reconciles.

However being human beings forgiveness is hard enough, forget reconciliation. Most of us don't want to forgive. Even if we do we think it stops with forgiveness. We rarely aim for reconciliation. Maybe its because we believe in the lies of the Devil and think its impossible. Maybe we've been hurt too much and we don't want to try again. Either way the primary cause for foregoing reconciliation is fear and hopelessness.

I had some friends who hurt me and I had hurt them in return. When we sat together one day to pray though I wasn't in a forgiving mood. My heart wanted it but unconsciously past events kept cropping up. Everyday I was reliving the pain of the past and I was struggling to forgive. Reconciliation? Bah forget it.

But that day as we sat together I realized that we all were changed. That I wrongly believed that I alone was suffering. We all were hurt, we all had trust issues, we could no longer be the free loving open individuals we were once in the past. It haunted me to see my struggles mirrored in their faces. And that prodded me towards forgiveness. Understanding begets empathy and empathy stirred the small, flickering flame of love in my heart once more.

Everyday when I wake up now I have to consciously make the decision to forgive. Some days are harder than most, when I'm irritable and assaulted with negative events. That's when I run to God and offer up my heart on the altar in the clouds and ask God to hold me and help me forgive. And for that day, just that golden day I can forgive.

And the day will come when I don't have to struggle to forgive anymore.

Maybe we can't forgive because we set out standards too low. Because our benchmark is not reconciliation but forgiveness. Let's raise the bar and set higher standards. In our quest to become Christ like let's aim to reconcile and then maybe we'll be able to forgive.