God is the ultimate source. Ask for forgiveness from Him. I guess you wouldn't really care though, would you?
Hate has a broader meaning than you are allowing it. If you dislike something enough to not forgive it, then you hate it. Becoming upset is a result of hate. Also, becoming upset when having to talk or think about something does not equate to any measure of forgiveness. It is only stubbornly deluding oneself. And you would be amazed to know that acceptance is actually a very difficult thing to do. Your example suggests tolerance at best, and tolerance is not the same as forgiveness. Tolerance is what I like to call using reason to suppress emotion, but the emotions are still very much there. Although to know for sure, why do not you ask the parents in your scenario whether they are acting out of forgiveness or tolerance?
While the conversation has gone onto a broader sense of forgiveness a lot of the examples are such that neither yours nor the path of the perpetrator of the personal crime will never again cross beit due to prison or death or whatever. The original post was about forgiving someone you have an interlocking life with, child/parent for example or other such close family connect and if it was possible to love again the way you once did and if it was possible how to make it so.
Well, I remember one example of two best friends - so not quite parent-child but there was an existing, intimate relationship, if that counts. It was a news article online, about this woman's hen night (or bachelorette party in US terms). The bride-to-be was partying with her closest girlfriends and one of these girls thought it would be hilarious to push the bride-to-be into the pool. She plunged into the water and snapped her neck. She survived but was rendered a quadriplegic (paralysed from the neck down). The article was written some ten years after the event, and in the interview the woman said she's completely forgiven her friend. They're still close friends, and how at first it was awkward between them and nobody wanted to mention the incident. I've forgotten now what else was said, but the main point was that the woman does not harbour any resentment against her friend, and that they've both managed to come to terms with things and the friendship's going strong. So, I'd say evidence suggests it's certainly possible to forgive and continue your relationship with the person who hurt you. The "how", though, is the tricky part that I cannot really answer. Personally I regard it as nothing short of a miracle when forgiveness for something this great is extended. Sometimes, though, I think it might be more a case of whether you're willing as opposed to anything else. Sure, you're not gonna forgive someone overnight, but if the willingness is there, the desire to salvage the relationship is there mutually, then I think that might be all that it takes. I've certainly heard stories of spouses cheating on one another and subsequently repented, and there was forgiveness and the marriage went on to flourish. I'm not sure if my mum ever forgave her mum (my grandma) for the mistake grandma made. Mum had a little sister who walked with a limp because her legs were of unequal length, but it was relatively mild and the sister was at least able to walk by herself. The doctors offered to experiment on the little sister and asked grandma for consent. Mum was only 8 at the time but she thought it was a bad idea, because her sister could walk just fine, though with a limp, but if the experiment failed then the consequences would be much worse. It wasn't worth it. But being a kid, no one listened and grandma signed the papers. The little sister came out worse off for it - from then on she had to wear a steel frame around her leg and can no longer walk without crutches, and subsequently became bound to a wheelchair. My mum loved her sister very much, and whenever she recounts this story (as she has many times), there's still a lot of anger. Mum never wished ill on grandma, but I can't say if there was any love between them either (grandma was not the best mother). I wouldn't say there was no forgiveness at all - for example mum continued to visit grandma long after she's flown the nest and regularly brought me and my sister to see her. Mum even offered that grandma could live with us at one point (relatively common in Chinese culture), though grandma refused. These actions tell me there must have been some care, some form of love there - some measure of forgiveness. At the same time, I'd say what forgiveness there was was likely never extended completely - though that's only my own theory. I'd have to ask mum to be sure, but truth is I'd say probably even she herself wouldn't know the answer.
I've forgiven. I don't hold a grudge for long. But I'd be lying to myself if I said I don't pity her, which I consider rather low of me 'cause I should only be happy for her. She's got a nice life, health, a newborn baby boy, a seemingly great hubby etc. so I'm definitely more happy for her than pity her. I guess I'm sometimes still looking back to our long talks about our to-be non-comformist futures.
I forget, then get reminded then decide "meh if i forgot, it's not important" and finally forgive. Anyway I'm too self absorbed to hold a grudge
Oh. That's not how I interpreted the post at all. Since you wrote it, however, obviously you win in the debate about what it meant. In most of those cases, no, I don't think that I would choose to forgive, and I don't think that I would choose to let that person stay in my life in any way. I could imagie a possible insanity defense--one instance of cheating and abject regret and a long period of rebuilding trust, in the case of the spouse, for example. And small-scale theft I could imagine forgiving, once. But large-scale well-planned theft, or the molesting uncle or the rape, no. We're done. It's over. I may or may not wish that the person get hit by a bus, but that person is out of my life, permanently. And I don't feel that I would be the least bit wrong in that decision. In fact, I have to strain myself to NOT feel that someone who does forgive in those circumstances, is wrong. I have to force myself to accept that they have every right to make a different decision. (As long as their decision doesn't harm anyone. For example, forgivenss that allows that molesting uncle to have contact with your kids is not, IMO, the least bit OK.)
I think Nilfiry summed it up nicely here. If you can talk about it without it being a trigger for bad memories, then you've forgiven or at least have moved on to a point where it isn't such a sensitive topic.
