LOCAL COMMENTARY
The Gift of Forgiveness
Friday, December 16, 2005
Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. It’s a time
for joyous celebrations with family and friends. It’s a special time to enjoy
the lights, music, and the colours of the season. For many people Christmas is
a time to re-connect with special friends and family, relax and eat!
There are children’s concerts, tree decorating, staff
parties and even a special type of traffic created by eager shoppers searching
for the perfect gift! Christmas is the time of year when Christians all over
the world celebrate the birth of Jesus and more importantly the Gift of
Forgiveness He was born to give.
Hhhmmm... a gift of forgiveness...what a neat idea! How
many of us race around seeking the gift that will be more special than the
rest... or more realistically how many of us race around looking for a gift
that will look like we put a lot of thought into it!
I often find the perfect Christmas gift in the middle of
July, when I have no money in my wallet and just wrote my last cheque! Of
course come December I can’t seem to find anything that fits that special
person just right!
So, if we think about the real meaning of Christmas and
the first Christmas gift given to the world by Jesus through his birth, we
realize that the most amazing gift may not be in a store or on the Internet,
the perfect gift may in fact may be right inside our hearts!
Some people will wonder how you can give forgiveness, or
for that matter why you would even want to give forgiveness! I am not
suggesting you wrap up a big dose of forgiveness and plant it under the tree
for the 10 year old who scratched your car with his skateboard, but I do
believe that if there was ever a time to give forgiveness some thought, the
Christmas season is that time.
The biggest mistake people make about forgiveness is the
assumption that the gift belongs to the person being forgiven. Nelson Mandella
said once that “Forgiveness is not a gift we give to another person, but a
gift we give ourselves”.
He went on to say that “we give forgiveness, not because
the person we are forgiving deserves it, but because we deserve the spiritual
freedom that comes when we forgive another”.
Without forgiveness we hold tightly onto anger,
resentment and fear. We let the actions of another person hurt us over and
over again throughout our lives.
The alcoholic parent or the unfaithful lover rarely know
how much pain and grief they have caused or how long it has caused us to
suffer. We bare the weight of that pain all alone. So this Christmas season,
when you are thinking about what you will give to others and what others can
give to you, think more importantly about the real meaning of this season of
peace.
Think about the peace that you deserve from yourself and
who you need to forgive in order to get it.
Give yourself the gift of peace, the gift of freedom from
hurt and anger... forgive someone this Christmas season... not because they
deserve it... but because you deserve it!
Shannon Seymour MA, of the Wellness Centre, has been a
therapist for over ten years, and enjoys working with children and families.
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