What Does Forgiveness Look Like?

“What’s your story about?”

This is a question asked of everyone in my writing class every week, and every week I struggle for a definitive answer. It’s hard for me to stick to one theme, because my story is about everything when I fold in all the subtexts like the ribbons of vanilla and chocolate in a marble cake. But if I had to choose one theme then I would say, “My story is about forgiveness.”

In closing my blogging week my last question is “What does forgiveness look like?”

Forgiveness looks like a long hard road of letting go. Forgiveness feels like letting out a breath that I’ve held for too long. I gasp and realize I could’ve let go and sucked in fresh air with more oxygen and more life.

I think it’s a process for me and it usually begins with how deeply I’m wounded. I remember a day when someone very special to me said, “You’re taking this too hard.” I was devastated thinking of the the day when he wouldn’t hold me in that special place in his heart anymore.

I’m guilty of paying lip service on many occasions when I tell somebody, “I forgive you,” or “That’s okay”, because forgiveness does not come easily to me. As I get more experience I learn that in accepting “bad news” or an event is really about how I relate to it/the subject/the situation. Some things are just really hard to accept, and I hope for the gift of grace to grant me the power to forgive through and through.

Well, till next time around. I’ve enjoyed sharing these questions with you.

Thanks for reading.

Analyn

5 thoughts on “What Does Forgiveness Look Like?

  1. Hi Eva,

    You’re so kind to wish me a road to recovery. And I wish you the same. This great book I came upon several months ago fell into my hands at the right time. It is by Carolyn Myss, “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can”. It talks about the evolution to Symbolic Power (The Age of Aquarius) where we accept things as archetypal stories rathen than personal (ego-based) experiences.

    I wrote about it once in my previous blogs. In fact, Nancy Beverly had commented that she is also a fan of Carolyn Myss writings.

    Take care and thank you for reading and commenting.

    Analyn

  2. Hi Erica,

    Thank you for reading and sharing your thought on this also. I agree that it’s hard to admit to our faults in a situation.

    These questions I put out during my blogging week are the exploratory questions I was using to ignite my imagination of the story of “Orginal Sin”. I’m slogging through the rewrite. So much resistance has been popping up, and part of it is “letting go” – to forgive the transgressions.

    One of the challenges is accepting that I am writing my story because it’s so exposed and it feels vulnerable, and it’s hard to believe I am acceptable as I am to others but more importantly to myself.

    Thank you. Thank you. Everyone at the LAFPI has been a great supporter of this expansion of the heart. I guess that is why we are all playwrights.

    Hey, I went to check out Jennie Webb’s reading of “The Blood Replacement”. It was bold! Awesome.

    Take care,
    Analyn

  3. I hope your heart is mended with peace and love of the people around you. I am going through the process of forgiving and ‘forgetting’ as well. It surely is not easy..

  4. Ah, that’s an awesome question. Maybe I’ve read or heard this somewhere before, but I do wonder sometimes, if we can forgive others before we forgive ourselves?

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