During counseling, in one of the classes, Counselor asked a question, directed at the men: “What is the one thing your spouse will do that maybe difficult to let go?”
Ninety Nine percent of the men answered: “Infidelity”. He asked this question during a topic titled “Conflict Resolution in Marriage”.
He was talking about advance forgiveness when he asked that question. If you ask me, I’d say, in other to forgive an individual in advance, you may need to imagine the worst possible thing they could do to hurt you, and then resolve in your heart to forgive them.
Of course, I don’t expect that everyone will be able to do this. I believe it takes more than just our natural ability to be able to really forgive a person and letting go, especially if they hurt you where it matters the most. But there’s a peace that comes with forgiving people and just retaliating with love and positivity.
So what happens in a case where you have imagined the worst of the worst and have actually forgiven this person in advance of anything that you could possibly think of, but they still go ahead to do what never crossed your mind.
The heart of a man(woman) is deep, very deep. It’s not possible to know a person 100% completely. We are not robots, we learn new things everyday, that may or may not impact our behaviour, actions and thoughts. Who you think you know today, might be a different person tomorrow. Luckily, people don’t change overnight, they change gradually, which is why it is important to communicate regularly as couples, ask intelligent questions to help you know your spouse better everyday, feed on the same thing overtime and rub off each other.
Ever wondered why, most times, when a couple experiencing a divorce, who have been living under the same roof say they don’t understand each other? You hear statements like, “He has changed” or “this is not the person I married”. It’s because people change gradually, and if you don’t pay attention or talk about things, it hits you as a surprise.
If you have two good friends, Mary and Sarah, who have similar values and have been together for let’s say 10 years or less, they have influenced each other, they have been able to check each others attitude to make sure they are in the right track, if you separate them for months to interact with their immediate environment only, and bring them back together afterwards, what you’ll notice is traces of the impact of their new environments on them, which they’ll both try to bring into their friendship unknowingly.
Growing up, I attended a boarding school, so I am usually away for months. One thing I remembered doing whenever I returned is to be careful of the friends I left behind, since we have not been communicating over those periods. I try to pick their words, catch up with what they have been up to, listen for new vocabularies that were not there and generally check if my friends are being positively or negatively turning out well. Doing this helped me know who to get closer to, or who to keep my distance from.
So, people change and its possible for them to do things you never imagined. Even Sodom and Gomorrah shocked God, he wasn’t expecting the level of evil he saw them do. I can’t say if God forgave them before or after wiping them out, but I’m sure at one point, he would have forgiven them. Out God doesn’t hold grudges.
Whatever the case is or could be, first thing is to resolve in your heart to always forgive or forgive in advance. It’s not as easy as it sounds. But when there’s a resolve to forgive, it’ll be easier to walk with other scenarios you have never heard of or imagined…
You need God’s help and strength to help you forgive and let go. I mentioned earlier, sometimes it takes more than our natural ability to forgive, but it in the end, you’ll be doing yourself and your mental health a favour. And of course, it’s God will that we forgive, as he has forgiven us.
On a side note, I think the ultimate test of forgiveness, is when you have the power, wealth and ability to hurt back someone who has offended you, but you are still able to forgive and let go. Like the story of the rich man who threw his debtor into prison, and then was able to forgive his debt and let him go.
Original Daddy YO 