Lesson 62: “Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”

We learn that forgiveness is entirely different from what we thought before.  The world regards forgiveness as the feeling with the lead weight attached.  Forgiveness feels like such a burden because it is very difficult to do and has every amount of emotional baggage attached to it.  This is the emotional backlash of what happens before and after we forgive.  The world deems forgiveness to be a huge challenge and in no way associated with light or fun or enthusiasm about doing it. Forgiveness feels like the weighty task that we try to avoid but occasionally can’t run from the reality of having to do it.  Therefore, we just try to get it over with because it is so burdensome.

The world associated forgiveness with a hellish reality that no one wants to volunteer to be the one who forgives or who wants to be forgiven.  It feels like the nastiest reality we can think of and in no way will allow it to be undertaken by us if we can avoid it.  Forgiveness feels like a dead end.  We don’t think of it as the blessing that the Course is teaching us it is.  The Course says we are privileged to forgive.  This completely rocks the ego’s world.  Our ego can hardly believe such a notion about forgiveness after all its attempts to deny that forgiveness is actually enjoyable.

What we want to do is stop and listen to our ego’s steady rejection of forgiveness and just realize this is part of what happens.  But what we learn in the Course’s terms is that forgiveness means there was never anything wrong in the first place.  Because error doesn’t exist in any way, we can actually feel unscathed by the problem at hand that we might perceive needs to be forgiven.  What we can do is realize that nothing bad ever happened in the first place so we don’t have to cling to our suffering and allow it to proceed.  All we have to do is get out of the mind frame that forgiveness is a problem to attain because when we realize that we are in fact uninjured by what seemed like a worldly slight, then we don’t have any reason for bother about it.  This is why we can still enjoy ourselves and be light, because since God loves us nothing truly bad can happen to us.

This is why we can stay in our mind of peace and acceptance because we are forgiving as we go.  We just need to realize that God always has a plan so nothing gets wasted.  If something happens that seems unfortunate and hurtful to us, we are assured that God absolutely is taking care of us despite how it looks.  It very well be to teach us an invaluable lesson.  It may be to just give us practice building our faith that God is always on the job of looking out for our highest good.  We need to have faith that the plan serves us and this is why we can forgive when we see slights that we think we don’t want to have.  We can simply accept that they have purpose regardless of whether we know what that is.  Then we reach deep into our soul and we allow the slight to be forgotten because

in the God’s grand scheme of things nothing can hurt us.

If we feel called to say something to the other person who appeared to hurt us, we pray to the Holy Spirit first and ask for direction.  Then we move to respond in whatever way feels appropriate- to assert our healthy boundaries and meet our needs.  But we absolutely do this with a heart of love and we forgive in the process.  When we do anything in a situation where we feel some attack around us, we must come with a forgiving heart as this is the only way to stop the cycle of attack.

♥We also forgive with a light heart. 

We don’t see forgiveness any more as something that we we feel obligated to do.  We don’t have to forgive because we feel guilty.  What we want to do is clear the slate in our minds with God’s help and allow forgiveness to be expressed with a feeling of lightness and warmth and understanding.  And we forgive because we are privileged to do it.

Forgiveness heals everyone involved. 

·This is why we are equally gifted as the giver as anyone who receives the forgiveness.