Forgiveness The difference between Amends and Forgiveness Amends are apologies for anything you did or did not do that might have hurt someone else. Victims and Amends: Some people develop a life long relationship with pain. It becomes a life-restricting and life-limiting habit. Most people are not aware that they are even doing this, as it becomes an almost automatic reaction to most life circumstances.

Victims and Amends:

• Some people develop a life long relationship with pain. It becomes a life-restricting and life-limiting habit. Most people are not aware that they are even doing this, as it becomes an almost automatic reaction to most life circumstances.

• Victims have a hard time apologizing. The sense of being a victim creates inaccurate pictures. Nevertheless there is a need to apologize for all transgressions no matter how slight or how big.

• Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different or better yesterday. ["If we chain our spirits forever to an evil past, we deny the possibility of a better future." From The Art of Forgiving by Smedes page 60.]\

• If we can feel the resentment when we remember the event we have not forgiven. Forgiveness completes the pain and then we can move on. Recovery is dependent upon completing the pain not retention of the resentment.

• I can acknowledge the things that a person did or did not do that hurt me, and I am not going to let them hurt me anymore. Or another way to say it is that I am not going to let my memory of those incidents hurt me anymore.

• When we retain the hurt in our memory and we do not forgive it only hurts us, not the one who hurt us. The action of forgiveness is designed to set us free which is the basic outcome of recovery. We forgive in order to get back our own sense of well being. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person. It has everything to do with us and our recovery.

• Forgiveness is an action, not a feeling. You will not feel forgiveness until you do it. Action must come first and then feeling will follow. Forgiveness is giving up the resentment you hold against another person. You may need to forgive them for something they actually did or for something they did not do. It may have been their choice to not do something that you would have liked for them to do. (Such as attend your wedding or graduation party, etc. and they did not attend.)

• Forgetting and forgiving are two separate ideas. Most people do not forget painful instances and words, but we can forgive. If we say we can not forget so we will not forgive we remain trapped and they are unaffected. We continue to resent and shut down our mind, body and heart. We limit our lives by the lack of forgiveness.

• Do not approach the person (if they are living) and ask forgiveness! An unsolicited statement of forgiveness is almost always perceived as an attack. The person being forgiven need never know that it has happened. In other words never directly forgive anyone face to face.

• When you ask someone for forgiveness it is like a manipulation in that you are asking them to do something you need to do. You need to forgive them for the hurt you feel. By asking them to forgive you, you put the burden on them to act. Make an apology, as that is the action you can and should take.

From: The Grief Recovery Handbook by James and Friedman

I find no scriptures that tell me to go to a person and ask forgiveness. The scriptures about forgiveness have to do with the individual who is hurt forgiving the one who hurt them. Forgiveness is from my heart toward the other person in such a way that they do not even need to know it happened. It is an action I take between my memories and God.

Here are a few examples of scriptures.

Mark 11:25: But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.” (NLT)

Ephesians 4:32: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (NIV)

Colossians 3:13: Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (NIV)

We are to forgive others as Christ forgave us. He did not come and ask us for forgiveness but he took care of it without involving us. When Jesus was on the cross he asked God to forgive those who were putting him to death as a prayer to God not a statement to the people. We are to forgive others in our prayers to God. Nothing indicates we are to go to anyone and ask them to forgive us.

This may be a revolutionary thought to many Christians who have been taught they must seek out someone that hurt them and ask forgiveness. To seek out someone that they hurt and say “I’m sorry” is making amends. We take action by asking forgiveness in prayer for those who hurt us. We take action by making amends to those we have hurt.

When I say to someone, “Will you forgive me,” I am asking them to take an action they do not need to take. I need to do the forgiving if they hurt me. If I did the hurting I take responsibility and apologize to them for my hurtful words or actions. Most of the time it is only necessary to make amends to those who are aware of the hurt we gave them. If the person is unaware that we hurt them we need not make amends to them. For example we may have had a bad attitude about someone or talked in a negative way about them and they never knew it. We can apologize to the person we spoke to as that was inappropriate, but if the one we talked about was not aware of it we need not make amends with them. We need to confess that sin to God and accept His forgiveness.

The qualifications for doing forgiving is that we are the ones wronged. That is someone did something to us that was not right. It means our trust in that individual was taken away. Naturally we can forgive anyone we want to and to be forgiving people that we don’t qualify to forgive is not an issue. It is better to err on the side of grace than bitterness. However the rule stands that to forgive we need to have been wronged. There is a difference in being hurt and being wronged. We are often hurt in life by accident. People mean no harm but accidents happen and we get hurt. Sometimes it is very difficult to know if a friend wronged us or hurt us by a careless unthinking word or action.

We must bear the wounds ourselves in order to be able to truly forgive. Just as a broken leg qualifies us to get emergency treatment so bearing the wounds ourselves qualifies us to forgive.

The exception is when we are so close to the one who was wronged that we too feel the wrong as much as if it was done to us. Parents feel that way about their children. You hurt my child you are hurting me.