Some Advice on Forgiveness (in Checkpoint form)...
1)No attacks! You cannot put up an offensive against this person whatsoever. If they attack you, you must simply exit from the situation. *Leave the forgiving up to God in this situation.
2)No tricks! Don't fool yourself in to forgiving someone. There's nothing worse than insincere forgiveness. If you find yourself *lying* to a person about forgiveness, then you might as well just not talk to them at all, at least not about anything deep or important. *Leave the forgiving up to God in this situation as well.
3)If you've gotten through the first two and you're still able to communicate with the person on a personal level, then you're doing well. This is the point at which you need to figure out if you actually DESIRE this person's friendship or relationship to you. If you do, then you go on to the next checkpoint. *If you don't, once again the forgiveness is left up to God.
4)Radiate love for this person. This is the first step to true forgiveness. If you can do this, then you are forgiving this person on a spiritual level. If you are doing this successfully and you'd like to go farther on the forgiveness path, go to the next step.
5)Communicate your desire to forgive. Let the person know that you sincerely wish to forgive them for whatever they've done to you. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is AS FAR AS IT GOES. Most people seem to think that in order to forgive someone you must go out of your way to do things for them, or you must talk up your forgiveness, or analyze it to death; none of that is necessary. Once you've told the person that you forgive them, that is the end of the road. You've succeeded in your goal. After this all that is left is PRAYER for the person, which is something you should do for everybody all the time anyway.
Note: Do NOT feel bad about having to leave the forgiveness up to God. By having this intention in your heart, you are forgiving the person to the best of your abilities, and that is all God expects from you. By no means should you feel guilty if you can't get past step three.
