Asked By:
raaman
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Other - Family & Relationships
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36 days ago
Answera1's Answer
It's VERY hard not to hate people who have hurt us the most. But Ihey say that forgiving others helps YOU the most. I never really understood this principle, till I recently saw a movie, called "Amish Grace". It is based on the TRUE story of a crazy gunman, (not Amish, but someone who delivered milk to them), who one day, took out his own grief at the death of his infant daughter, (some years before), by taking a gun, and going into an Amish schoolhouse, and eventually killing some of the little girls there, and injuring some others. Tnen -- he killed himself. One scene particularly got to me. During a "grief therapy" session, attended by the Amish girls' parents, as well as the family of the shooter, one of the women got up and said, (amongst other things), that "forgiving is not forgetting." In her mind, she left the man's punishment up to God. (And in the Bible, it DOES say, "Vengeance is Mine, Saith The Lord".) By leaving the man's punishmnt to God, (the Ultimate punisher/ forgiver), this woman -- who had lost a daughter -- is able to take the griief and anger off of herself -- in the end, she feels, it IS God's responsibility. All of the Amish people also make friends with the widow, (and father-in-law), of the killer -- mentioning that the killer's widow has also lost a family member -- her husband. This "Let God Be Angry For Me" helps many of the Amish people recover from the loss of their daughters. This lady didn't actually "forgive" the shooter, but she did "pardon" him. There is a difference -- in this mindset, humans can ONLY pardon -- it's up to God to do the forgiving, (or not).. To me, this is a good idea -- IF you can actually do it. As for me, sometimes I can -- but it's not permanent, and the anger at people who have hurt me through the years does come back. But recently, I've thought of another solution.
It also works -- sometimes, for me. And that is this: the people who have hurt me did so because their OWN lives, for whatever reasons, were miserable. For SOME reason(s), they just took their anger out on me, and hurt me very, very deeply. However, since they were miserable in the first place, I try to be happy, because I know I'M NOT miserable -- at least in the ways that they were miserable. They had some life experiences that were SO bad, they had to take it out on other people -- often including, but also often, not just, me. Since they hurt me, (so much!), I find I take a vicarious pleasure in the misery that caused them to be so miserable. This might seem a very cruel attitude -- but I would never feel this way about anyone, I F they did not hurt me first.! (General Colin Powell was once asked by Barbara Walters how he dealt with the problem of prejudice. He said he never had any problems with prejudice -- it was the people who hurt him who had the problems! As I said, these two ideas, (1) forgive -- or, rather, pardon -- but dont forget, and (2) Realize the other person hurt you because there was something inside them that was hurting them -- work for me -- sometimes. My anger and hatred at the people who hurt me do keep coming back, but with these two ideas, it has lessoned -- just a bit -- from what it was before I tried these things.
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36 days ago |
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