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Highlands Today

Forgive And Forget

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By Charles A. Harrington

Published: October 1, 2007

How often have we heard, "I'll get even with that SOB?"

When we suffer an injustice, we all have an urge to get even at all cost. But is it ever worth it?
"There is much research about the negative effects of hostility," said Stanford University psychologist Fred Luskin, author of "Forgive for Good." It makes much more likely to heart disease, it creates your risk for stressful disorders, it raises your blood pressure. Wanting to hurt somebody is like pouring Drano into your insides."

Someone once said "Life is too short to be unforgiving," yet we continue to hold on to and remember past injustices and resentments for years, often for a life time, which never serves any useful purpose.
Often a family dispute results in not speaking and having no contact with each other. This can carry over to children and even grandchildren as a form of punishment, and will continue on for years. Many times it severs contact to the grandkids, who are innocent victims of the dispute.

All all the words I have read on forgiveness, the words of Desmond Tutu say it best: "Without forgiveness, there is no future. Forgiveness frees a person to experience love, to be healed, to grow, and to change. When this happens, a forgiving person can reach out in love to a world so much in need of healing."

The clock is ticking for all of us, we never know the day or the hour that it will stop forever. We need to ask ourselves the age-old question, "if not now, when?" There is no time like the present, lost opportunities may never return, we do not have to say who is right or who is wrong, all of us have been unfairly wronged at one time or another, forgiveness is not easy, but by forgiving the past injuries and reaching out to the individual with true forgiveness in your heart, will make you both feel better as well as do a world of spiritual good for each other. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What are we waiting for?

Charles A. Harrington

Lake Placid

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