One of the mysteries surrounding our ability to forgive is the “Point of Readiness” as I call it. Have you noticed that something that seems unforgivable one day can be re-framed and forgiven another day?

A friend who is an ordained minister tells this story. She was working as a minister with a small community of students when someone in the group began to spread rumors and turn everyone against her. She did not understand what had hit, but it did hit pretty hard. Friends and followers she had for years stopped speaking to her. She began to feel ill-at-ease moving in the circle of her friends and students because of the nasty and humiliating rumors being spread. But she did continue her work for a few years until she had an opportunity to move to another city in the same state.

Over a ten year period, bitterness built up about not being able to feel at home in the circle of her former community. It was easier to avoid going to functions where “he” would be because her anger for what he did to ruin her reputation came up again and again. She tried to forgive using the techniques she taught as a minister, but to no avail.

When she tired of missing out on many events and functions, she asked for help from colleagues and read everything she could find about forgiveness. She knew in her mind what the steps were, but her heart would not allow it. Then one weekend she was attending a workshop on creating the life you love, and it hit her. Everything she had been told, and all she had studied, came to light when the speaker mentioned how the quality of everyone’s life is better when the past is left behind. At that moment, the light went on and she was at the point of readiness to begin taking the steps of forgiveness in her mind AND in her heart.

You never know when something will be heard, seen or felt that will move you to the point where you are ready to give up the anger and bitterness and let the past go. Welcome it when it shows up!