{"id":1457,"date":"2014-10-23T14:47:37","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T04:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2014-11-07T10:55:57","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T00:55:57","slug":"practicing-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1457","title":{"rendered":"practicing forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n

I want to offer you forgiveness.<\/p>\n

I want to offer to myself,<\/p>\n

as a gift,<\/p>\n

my forgiveness of you.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You wrote to ask me if there was<\/p>\n

‘anything wrong.’ After months–<\/p>\n

years–of threats, tears, rage,<\/p>\n

abuse, and cruelty.<\/p>\n

Most recently<\/p>\n

there were the stories you told<\/p>\n

mutual friends: that\u00a0your affair<\/a><\/p>\n

was of no consequence, that there was<\/p>\n

rot in our foundations, and she<\/p>\n

was the cure.<\/p>\n

That you<\/p>\n

had extended kindness, and<\/p>\n

patience, rather than lies<\/p>\n

and false accusations.<\/p>\n

After so much betrayal and dis-<\/p>\n

honesty — things I still cannot<\/p>\n

talk about, cannot recall,<\/p>\n

without weeping —\u00a0after<\/p>\n

every\u00a0vow has been broken,<\/p>\n

every promise,\u00a0this —this–<\/em><\/p>\n

is your question?<\/p>\n

Here is my reply:<\/p>\n

I forgive you<\/p>\n

for the things you did to me<\/p>\n

and to yourself.<\/p>\n

What more,<\/p>\n

after all,<\/p>\n

is there left\u00a0to do?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\"forgiveness\"<\/a>Forgiveness is not glossing over a problem or excusing it without consequences, or letting someone continue to treat you badly. It\u2019s always important to first get out of a dangerous situation, such as a violent or abusive relationship. Forgiveness does not have to include reconciliation, where both sides work to create a healthy and peaceful ongoing relationship. Forgiveness is a personal decision to not allow anger, hurt and resentment to control your life, and to forgive someone who has wronged you, even if they don\u2019t deserve it.
\n<\/em><\/em>Do One Thing for a Better World<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to offer you forgiveness. I want to offer to myself, as a gift, my forgiveness of you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,383],"tags":[808],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc","category-on-living","tag-forgiveness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LH1G-nv","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/forgiveness.jpg?fit=640%2C427","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1474,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}