Forgiveness ...

It is one of the main theme in my life lately ... been thinking a lot about it .. and then yesterday I experienced another incident that I pondered on this even more. Due to time constraints ... my spiritual director had to reschedule our meeting lots back and forth. And we finally agreed to meet on yesterday noon-ish about a week ago ... When I was there ... I didn't see her. So I waited for a bit. In 5 min's time, she showed up but didn't seem like she's preparing for a section. I "interrupted" her and chatted. It turned out she forgot our appointment!! She thought I had confused the appointment due to various back and forth coordination. I'm sure I didn't ... as I just checked the "agreed upon" email just last night. But it seemed that she's forgotten and not prepared .. so I didn't say anything and just confirmed with her the next time we are meeting. I was quite angry and annoyed in the beginning .. (haha .. yes, back to our importance ... we all think we are important and special, so am I!! I'm thinking, how could you forget me, your directee's, appointment! Not acceptable!!). After some deep breathing to calm my nerves down, I can see her humanness ... She’s also a human being, there’s probably lots on her plate .. then I decided to forgive! Yes, I remembered and agreed that forgive is a decision we have to make … Really learned that long ago .. yet the more I experience I found that having the decision and be able to fully forgive is different things. I had fully decided to forgive, yet at times I stumbled to fully forgive. Then last night, I got her email apologizing, as she checked her record and realized it's actually she who had screwed up the times. With that, I fully reconciled and at ease in forgiving. It is "funny" how such a small incident is actually so complex within, and so much to deal with.

It reminded me of my own tougher situation / lesson on forgiveness .. I decided to forgive and thought I had forgiven. Yet at times, God just revealed to me more and more (and bit by bit) that I wasn’t there yet, I haven’t fully forgiven yet …. Still have work to do, things to work on .. no matter how determine I was … This reminds me how GREAT God is .. for he truly forgive ... what a hard lesson to learn!!

I wonder how much do I treasure His forgiveness? Probably not enough as I didn’t realize how hard it is to truly forgive. The hurt was made, the hurt is there, and it would “always” be there in a sense that it cannot be reversed, cannot be erased in our memory. Yet with the hurt and memory within .. He decided and fully determined to forgive .. and mind you, we keep failing again and again continually yet He continued to forgive, or even we didn't even realized we did wrong and come to our senses to apologize or ask for forgiveness!! How generous and merciful HE is!!! How beautiful it is. Yes, Rev. Wong was right that at times we say “we forgive” too soon ... yes, too soon before we realize what it actually mean, too soon to really for us to connect our mindset and feeling to the fully forgiving "mode". But, we can surely be able to triumph that by the grace of the Lord.

Sorry Lord, I didn’t learn to treasure You and Your forgiveness more~~ Please forgive me .