How easy is it to forgive? Varying experiences reveals that forgiveness is not the easiest of virtues. As difficult as this is, unforgiveness is not an option. It is a hydra headed monster that have done damage to humanity and ruined many beautiful relationships. The natural tendency for human is a desire to revenge. When someone hurts you, there is this inner craving to revenge at the slightest opportunity. The plot for revenge occupies our mind and drains out positive energy. Forgiveness is for the strong. We do ourselves a lot of good when we forgive. When we are unforgiving, it hurts and makes us bitter and when we forgive, it sets us free.

A teacher once asked her students to bring some tomatoes in a plastic bag to school. Each tomato will be given a name of the person whom that child hates. This way, the number of tomatoes will be equal to the number of persons they hate.

On a decided day, the children brought their tomatoes well addressed. Some had two, some had three and some had five, some even had 20 tomatoes in accordance with the number of people each student hate thus if a student hates 5 people, he/she will bring 5 tomatoes.

The teacher told them they have to carry the tomatoes with them everywhere they go for two weeks. As the days passed the children started to complain about the decay and smell of the tomatoes. The students who had many tomatoes complained it was very heavy to carry and the smell was too much. After a week, the teacher asked the students "How did you feel this one week?" The Children complained of awful smell and heavy weight of the tomatoes especially those who carried more tomatoes.

The teacher said, "This is very similar to what you carry in your heart when you don't forgive people. Hatred makes heart unhealthy and you carry that hatred everywhere. If you can't bear the smell of spoilt tomatoes for a week, imagine the impact of bitterness on your heart as you carry it daily."

Everyone gets hurt and anyone can hold a grudge but it takes a person with virtue to forgive. When you forgive, you release yourself from ‘prison’. Forgiveness doesn’t justify the wrong done to you and it doesn’t mean the person that hurt you should still be welcome in your life; it simply means you have made peace with the situation and are ready to let go.

When we take a look at the scriptures, Jesus points to the importance of forgiveness in this business of loving each other. Peter initiates the discussion when he says, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” The Jewish rabbis taught that you should forgive someone three times, but after that there was no forgiveness. Peter thought he was being large of heart by going beyond the normal bounds of forgiveness, so he was probably shocked when Jesus said, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” And if the truth were told, we are shocked that Jesus demands this kind of forgiveness as well. We often withhold forgiveness after just one offence, let alone seventy times seven.

And after Jesus made this shocking statement, he told a parable about a man who owed a king millions of dollars. The king threatened to sell him and his whole family into slavery until the debt was paid — which he would never be able to do. Nevertheless, the servant fell to his knees and begged the king for a chance to repay the debt. And then, in what must have been shocking to him, the king cancelled the whole debt and let him go. The point of this part of the parable is to show how God, the King, deals with us. Because of our many sins, which we can never make right, God forgives all our sins, releases us from all our debt, frees us from our guilt and the bondage of our sin. What this amazing act of grace and generosity should do is fill us with gratitude and a resulting grace toward others.

But in a surprising twist to the story, the man meets a friend of his who owes him a few dollars. He forgets all about how he was treated by the king and demands the debt be repaid immediately. The friend falls on his knees and begs (as he had done with the king) and says, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.” But the man refuses his friend’s request and had him thrown into prison “until he could repay the debt,” which was impossible, since he could not work in prison. A shocking turn of events. And their fellow servants report the incident to the king. So the king calls the servant to appear before him and says, “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And then Jesus ends the parable with these frightening words, “In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” It is such a relief to forgive someone, because when you do you realize that you are the one that is being made free - by your forgiveness — not them.

God bless you big.

http://metropolexpress.com/columns/item/6457-the-prison-called-unforgiveness-by-gbenga-owotoki-florida-usa[b][/b]

I am guilty. And this has been one of my red flags. You will be alive but you will be suffering.