The power of forgiveness

How have you hurt me? Let me count the ways.

You lied to my face. You stole from me. You cheated me. You betrayed my trust. You made me feel as if everything was my fault. You made me beg for what is rightfully mine. You made me wait in anguish and in despair wondering if you would ever return it back to me. Then you made me feel bad when I asked you to return what was rightfully mine. You made me feel as if you were doing me a favour by returning what was mine in the first place. You were mean, nasty and downright cruel to me. Your words hurt me.

I must admit I was extremely angry and upset with you. To be honest, I wanted to exact revenge on you and I thought of many, many ways of hurting you, of humiliating you, of bringing you down.

But I did not. I held it all back. Because my priority was to get back what you had taken from me. That was more important to me. So I let my anger, my pride, my ego, my thirst for revenge, to take a back seat until you returned it all to me.

And in waiting, in being patient, I have actually cooled down. I am no longer angry with or at you. I no longer harbour any vindictive intentions against you. I do not hate you. I have accepted what you have done to me, and I do not hold it against you.

I forgive you.

And just like that, all the hurt, pain, anguish and despair that I have been feeling for days, have just disappeared.

Because I forgive you, you can never hurt me again.