Forgive

Back in school we had a school prayer - a typical catholic hymn kind of a prayer that said "give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins - as we forgive those who hurt/sin against us" And then the choir would hit the hi c and go "Oh, forgive us our sins" again. I liked the sound of this tune, the feel of it as well. It was like I could be forgiven for lying to my teacher about homework or faking a stomach ache to miss PT. I always felt good about the bail out option God had for me. He would forgive me for all my sins. Little did I know that real forgiving actually takes a lot of character and it is as Godly as it gets.

I see a lot of my friends crib constantly about something some relative had said that made them mad. They would discuss about come-back lines, revenges and 'paying- it- back- in- their- own coin' remedies. These are the petty vengeance we carry in our day to day lives. Something the neighbor said about the dog poop in their front lawn, some naive comment about our weight or someone making our accomplishments look common/trivial are some of the silly things we might never forgive. We seem to be caught in our own web of un-forgiveness and nurture a slow poison that consumes us form the inside. For that matter, forgiving is more important to us than to the person in question that needs to be forgiven - since our unforgiven baggage make us vile, hurtful and most importantly the victims of our own hatred.
As with everything, forgiving does take time in different occasions. Now, if someone called you something you are not - you could just shrug, smile and go ahead with your life, but someone causing hurt to your family, your lively hood or something more precious will probably take time. Little by little, we heal with time and let go of the hard feelings we nurture for the person that caused them. So, sooner or later, forgiving is the only way out to keep our sanity intact and lead our lives with less complication.

We should probably look into ourselves and try to find the umpteen number of times we'd have said or done something unkind and it might become a little more evident to us that to err is after all human.

Imagine how a lot of heart breaks would have been saved by simply letting go of our hurt and forgiving whole heatedly. The idea here is not to be divine but just to be human and let love spread:-) Like Gandhi said - if we get eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind. A lot of human suffering big and small would have been saved if the policy to forgive would have been exercised. And the best part is when you forgive you let go and alight from the vehicle of revenge and suffering. God Almighty forgives us for everything they say! We should probably let go too... to imitate our creator and better yet, to save our own selves form a vicious circle of pain, suffering and revenge!

So...let's ask Him to give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins along with granting us the strength and character to forgive and hopefully, forget!