A Forgiveness Challenge can be harder than climbing Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain! “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive” , states C.S. Lewis. Have you found that lovely changes to ugly when someone hurts or offends you?

There are a number of ways to deal with an offense. First, you ignore the situation and act like it didn’t bother you. Second, you refuse to forgive. Third, you attempt to forgive but sense your resentment coming back again. These three responses will probably have no affect on the person that hurt you, but can cause disease, health issues, and a rise in your own stress hormones. Holding on to a resentment can be compared to carrying a corpse on your back. It will eventually cause your healthy tissue to rot and decay, literally eating away at your own skin at some point.

Maybe a better way to see forgiveness is as a “shift in thinking” (Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky). Forgiveness is not necessarily so much for the person who has hurt you as it is for you. I once had a counselor say that the person who betrayed me was “my best teacher”. Did she not bring out in me the things God most wanted to change? Good point, I said! My thinking shifted that day to seeing it as a benefit instead of a detriment.

When you forgive, you must cancel the debt. This means you do not go collecting on it at a later time or continue bringing it up. You will know that forgiveness has taken place when your emotions are no longer stirred when you think of the person or situation.

The old English word for forgive means to “give completely”. Instead of holding on to a hurt we “let go” of it, releasing the effect it has on us personally. In other words, it is a “gift we give ourselves” (Tony Robbins). True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.” (Oprah Winfrey)

During this season we are reminded of Jesus who came to earth to die, “letting go” of his rights in order to offer us forgiveness…even when we didn’t deserve it. This reminds us that we can forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us. I encourage you to take the Forgiveness Challenge today!