To choose forgiveness doesn't mean we need to like the person who we feel has wronged us and it doesn't have to be instantaneous. But you can use the situation to begin today by simply deciding if even some small part of you wants to learn to think differently about yourself, about the world. To think in terms of love instead of attack. To learn to be grateful to that person for giving you an opportunity to practice choosing love instead of using them to reinforce your own pain. That practice will serve you well in life and those you love will benefit from it immeasurably because forgiveness is the choice to free the self from pain. People attack and abuse because of their own pain. You can be present to the pain in others and love them through it when you are able to let go of the need to make it about your own pain. This is why forgiveness frees us to truly love others because without pain within ourselves we don't meet their pain with ours. We meet it with our love instead.
Seen in this way those who appear to hurt us become those who save us. Given the purpose of learning forgiveness they are the springboard from which we catapult ourselves into true unconditional love for others, into peace and into a life filled with gratitude and joy.
