Forgiveness

Our church recently hosted a "Community Forum" with survivors of the Holocaust.  I was just watching the 2+ hour long video and it definitely got me thinking.  

My life and hurts are so small compared to what so many have suffered and are suffering;

Displaced people in refugee camps in the Congo, 

Rwandans who are still recovering from their genocide, 

Kenyans currently in the midst of civil unrest, 

Iraqis who have lived in stress and war all their lives, 

Orphans in every country, victimized and unprotected,

Widows with no means of supporting themselves, degraded in their culture simple for being women,

People all over the world dying from treatable illnesses resulting from a simple lack of access to clean water, 

Survivors of physical and sexual abuse, 

of course, the survivors of the holocaust,

and this list goes on endlessly.

I have to ask myself: what are MY hurts and sufferings compared to theirs?

And yet, I once had a therapist (Murray) who had worked, getting his hours for his LCSW, in a burn ward.  He told me that it was hard to get people with smaller burns (maybe 3rd degree covering one arm) to allow themselves to grieve properly when they were next to people with their entire faces burned beyond recognition.  

"How can I feel sorry for myself when there is THAT terrible suffering going on right next to me?  I should be grateful."  But Murray said that for the patient with the arm burn, it was equally necessary and important for them to work through their loss and pain and grief if they hoped to move on healthily.  

The holocaust forum addressed the issue of forgiveness and none of the survivors really had any answer.  Some said they didn't have the right to forgive... it was not their to forgive.  The dead were the only ones who had earned the right to decide whether to forgive or not.  And yet, I have read Corrie Ten Boom's book "The Hiding Place" and (because she is a follower of Jesus) got a strong and firm message of forgiveness.  (I will try to blog more about this at a later date.)

So, I have been left to ponder forgiveness when one has been hurt and wounded - at whatever level...  How one does that and what it looks (and feels) like.  I am striving to forgive Mr. M.  I am succeeding some and failing a lot.  I am still grasping very tightly.  I SO want something I can say or do to have the power to save him.  But I am learning (slowly but surely) that I have no power over him and his choices.  I ony have power over myself and my choices.  And I can choose to forgive.

Or not.