The Boundaries in Forgiving

 Can we talk for a second about forgiveness? 

People do stupid, hurtful things, and we're taught to forgive them for it.  Now...I'm all about forgiveness. Heaven knows I've needed to be forgiven for my share of wrongdoings, so I love the principle of forgiving others and being forgiven myself. 

But forgiveness is not the same thing as letting people continue to treat you like trash.

Years ago, I had a really close friend. We'd been friends since high school. We worked together, we helped raise each other's babies, I was there in the hallway when her daughter was born. She was one of my absolute favorite people. There's nothing I wouldn't have done for her...she was like a sister to me. 

This friend hit a really rough patch for a while, and I didn't like the way she handled it. In fact, I got super judgy about it and after a while of holding in my distaste for her choices, one day I just lost it on her. I said horrible things that to this day I cannot believe I had to nerve to say. I broke her trust and threw away every ounce of friendship I had worked years to build.

And to this day, almost a decade later, I've never gotten that back.

I apologized pretty quickly after what I did. And my friend thanked me for the apology, offering what I thought was a fair amount of forgiveness for what I'd done. But I haven't seen or heard from her since then. 

The thing is, she may have forgiven me for how awful I was to her, but that forgiveness didn't win me a place back in her life. And over the years, I've learned to respect the boundaries she set for herself back then. It took maturity I certainly didn't have at the time.

Growing up in the church I think we often do a disservice to one another, talking so much about what forgiveness is, but not enough about what it is not.  It leads to a woman feeling obligated to keep coming back when her husband apologizes for infidelity. It coerces our youth into continuously walking back into a ward building where they are crucified by church bullies.  And it's time we change that.


Yes, we should forgive. Absolutely. It's a commandment! We should forgive because we will need to be forgiven ourselves. But forgiveness does not mean we aren't able to set boundaries to keep ourselves safe. Forgiveness is not God's way of saying it's okay for people to treat us however they want to without consequence. God doesn't want us to suffer. 

I repeat: GOD DOESN'T WANT US TO SUFFER!

It's okay to forgive, but not forget. 
It's okay to forgive, but not stay friends.
It's okay to forgive, but still not like a person.
It's okay to forgive, but remove a person from your life.

Forgiveness is different for every person, every situation, and it is a PROCESS. It doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to reach! You can even be forgiving of someone one day, and feel completely different about it the next day. 

Remember that we were sent here to TRY to be like Jesus. We are not expected to BE Jesus. 


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