What are the costs of forgiving? What are the costs of not forgiving?

Leslie Leyland Fields writes,

...I found the yoke of forgiveness, then, lighter than the yoke of hurt and hate. I found the yoke of caring for him easier than the burden of abandoning him.

And love came back. Yes, in small doses. He called me “amazing,” one day. He phoned on my birthday. When I came to visit, he didn’t want me to leave. All of this was new. All of this broke my new-found heart.

Forgiving my father has changed me. The broken and bitter parts of me are healing.

One forgiveness has led to others and to my own apologies from those I know I have hurt. I am moving toward the person I hope to be.

My father was touched as well. In the last two years of his life, my “worthless” father was surrounded and blessed by the very ones he had harmed.

I believe he felt loved, perhaps for the first time. We cannot heal all the broken families of the world, but we can begin here: with ourselves and our own families. With God’s forgiveness and love, anything is possible.

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