Raw. Vulnerable. Hard.

Thank you.

I like the way how you weave in and out of what is forgiveness and yet how forgiveness has been misunderstood and misrepresented. I read this as saying: “this really isn’t forgiveness--but this is...avoid the one, do the other--but on your timing."

I think timing is crucial here. Forgiveness is important, but I cannot dictate to you when you should forgive. Your healing and your journey is very personal. I don’t have the right to say, “Today is the day you should forgive.”

As Miroslav Volf points out, forgiveness often comes in “droplets".

Miroslav Volf, a Croat theologian who experienced the horrors of the Balkan wars, also a persecuted Christian who served in the Communist Yugoslavian Armed Forces writes of this in his book Exclusion and Embrace. He points out the very act of forgiveness itself is an act of judgement. To say “I forgive you” is to say, “You have done something wrong that needs forgiving.” (If you don’t believe that, just tell a random stranger, “I forgive you” and notice their reaction).

He points out that before there can be embrace there has to be exclusion.