For the past few months, I have been given the challenge of forgetting about the past and just moving on. As someone very wise said, "it's hard to forget when you have a good memory" and that is exactly my problem.
I can remember all sorts of details about people hurting me, or mistakes I have made, or ....... That makes it very hard to just "forget" about the past. This tends to reap unfortunate consequences for me, though, as I hold on to the past and the hurt rather than letting it all go. But nonetheless, I cannot forget.
But today I was reading a book called "The Freedom of Forgiveness" and I read about the notion of forgiving and forgetting. The author (whose name I cannot remember) wrote the following:
"Forgiving and forgetting are related, but forgiving precedes forgetting. To forget ignores the needs of the offender and injures the offended by driving the sense of being wronged deep into one's own being where resentment does its slow destructive work. Forgetting is negative, passive; forgiving is positive and creative."
When I read that, my heart went "FINALLY!!! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!!" When someone tells me to "let it go" or to "just forget it", it feels like they are telling me to shove my feelings deep inside and continue living as if nothing ever happened. I am not built to just shove my feelings inside and move on...I have to process.
True forgiveness, however, does not call for selective amnesia. Rather, it calls for a courage beyond all belief, a strength, a vulnerability. "Real forgiveness comes with the recovery of a relationship, even when the rupture is repeated again and again." (Note to self: that's hard, ok, darn near impossible)
The courage comes when you remember the hurt, but don't relive it. When you let past grievances lie buried, when you move beyond the feelings. The past is the past and while forgetting doesn't quite serve to our best interest, letting the past stay in its place does.
