Is it the Right time?

Is it right to forgive?
Is it the right time to forgive?

Forgiveness: the new F word! Sounds so easy, but actually involves so much! For the past month, two questions have been in my mind: Is it right to forgive and Is it the right time to forgive? These questions stemmed from a series of discussions I had with friends and genocide survivors who don’t feel any need to forgive those who dehumanized them.
First, is it right to forgive? In other words, do killers deserve mercy? From childhood we are taught that when people do wrong, they must bear the consequences of their actions. We are taught that we are to repay evil with evil, and that we must have justice, justice that we deserve! We are never taught that sometimes we ought to show mercy! We see mercy as weakness, as something that uncovers our inability to respond with strength to offenses against us. But mercy is never for the weak. As Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, “It takes a lot of courage and love to be able to not respond to darkness with darkness.” The fact is, nobody ever deserves mercy. Mercy is something that can never be “deserved,” yet it is universally needed. We are all alike in that we constantly wrong others; the common bonds we share are our imperfections and (at least potentially) our forgiving love.
But can we forgive something like genocide? Should we?
Forgiveness is a gift that you give to another, yet it affects you the most! Think about it: when you hold grudges and bitterness, you are only hurting yourself! The moment you start thinking of the person that has hurt you, the poison seeps through your mind making you miserable! Your own unforgiveness destroys you, takes away your happiness. Nelson Mandela said that “unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping your enemy dies.”

Is it the right time to forgive? I believe that forgiveness is a very personal matter and that each person should find his/her own way to forgiveness. No one should be forced to forgive; instead, they should be given the opportunity to work through the difficult process of radical forgiveness at their own pace. Making absolute statements such as “this is not the right time to forgive” or “this is the right time to forgive” suggests that we all are the same. Not true! Each one of us must find our own way and our own pace. For some it may take a few days; for some many years. And some might never find it in their hearts to forgive.

Does the fact that you cannot forgive make you evil? No, I don’t believe that. But if we are to find healing for our hearts, we will only find it through forgiveness!