Forgiveness: Wonderstruck

Today the challenge is to spend twenty minutes in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to reveal where you harbor unforgiveness. Write each down and forgive each one. Pray for your own forgiveness for holding unforgiveness in your heart, then pray blessing each name on your list.

I won't share in detail the results of this challenge. Most of the folks on my list probably wouldn't see a valid reason for being there. The others would have valid reasons to put me on a list of their own. Most of us don't set out consciously to harm those we love. And usually only those we love harm us. Obviously, I'm not speaking of being the victim of a crime. Just those niggling emotional pains that are so hard to overcome and so hard to forgive.

Which is why we don't forgive just once. People can't just forgive and forget; we're not wired that way. We are hurt. We forgive. Then, like a dog toying with a bone, we pull that hurt out at a low point and examine it anew. So we forgive again. Sometimes we're forgiving ourselves over and over.

Confession. Reconciliation. Penance. All names for the wonderful Sacrament where Christ, through the priest, forgives and ABSOLVES our sins. Even the same ones, over and over. That IS the wonder of forgiveness!