THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS

A customer was complaining about the shoes he had purchased in a store. After offering to refund his money or exchange the shoes to no avail, the salesman finally asked, "Well, what do you want?" The customer responded, "I just want to complain." Sometimes we feel that life has played us a dirty trick; people and circumstances have conspired to cause us disappointment, frustration and sorrow, and we are nursing our grievances against the way things are and have been for us. "It's unfair," we say. We haven't been treated right by this, that or the other. Yet we can rehearse the wrongs of life endlessly and never find peace of mind or freedom of heart. Forgiveness releases us from a too long festering wound of pain and grievance. With forgiveness comes real healing and new life. We forgive for our own healing sake. We've been wounded too long, and we need the healing. We don't have to carry our pain a moment longer. This moment right now we can forgive and experience our healing and our release.