The Long Journey to Forgiveness: Forgiving the Unforgiven

Photo taken by yours truly @Timang Island, Yogyakarta - February 2018

Ya Allah, I come to you and ask for your help. I know that I am to forgive others as you have forgiven me, but I find it so hard to do it. My mind and heart are full of anger for the things that have been said and done. At times it seems as though the ones that inflict pain and wounds are unrepentant, that they escape judgement. I'm angry for what they have taken from me and for the pain they caused me.

Ya Allah, please help me to see with your eyes. Help me to remember that forgiveness is for me and not for others. Help me to remember that my forgiveness does not depend on them apologising or repenting, help me to remember that forgiveness is between me and you. I am releasing my pain and my hurt and my anger to you and I am asking for your help in forgiving others so I can be free.

I want to forgive and leave this heavy weight at my feet so I can be set free. I no longer want to held hostage in a prison of anger and bitterness and sadness for what has been done by someone else. I no longer want to serve the sentence for what someone else has done wrong. 

Ya Allah, release me from this bondage and free my heart. Help me to live in the peace and freedom. From this day forward, I want to be healed from all these negative feelings. Thank you Allah for helping me with what I can't do and what I don't have the strength to do on my own power. I know I am able to do through you. 

Thank you Allah for helping me to move forward today. Help my mind turn to you when the old feelings and thoughts start entering my mind. Bind the enemy so they can't bring up the past. Clean the wound out of my heart Ya Allah so it can finally heal and so it can be at peace. Amin

Those were my du'a this morning.

Can you really learn to forgive? Sure. Is it easy? Not at all.

Terrible things are part of this world. Life is not fair and you were terribly hurt. The scars of life, the healed wounds, the deep lines, they all have stories to tell. We have all been betrayed, abandoned, or wounded by someone. Some offences are greater than others, but we are all familiar with the ache. And everyone's been hurt in one way or another.

Sometimes Allah swt takes away everything from you. Not everything literally, but something that might have meant it all to you. Sounds harsh, yet it truly isn't. It is during our weakest moments when everything is taken away, we feel that no one can understand how we truly feel. Some things are minor and easy to forgive, other things are so egregious, that it is only through Allah's grace and strength that we are able to forgive. Frustration, sadness and disappointment from how things turned out. Regret over what could have been. Anger and hatred for how I dealt with the situation and breaking me on the inside. And each time, I stopped myself, reminding that staying away is for the better. 

Beyond that, I was angry at myself. I'm angry that I even allowed myself to be fooled. I was disappointed as I was blind enough and allowed myself to be used. All in all, I was mad that I had not taken proper care of myself. I had let myself get hurt. I had let myself down. 

I needed to forgive others... and MYSELF. I am dragging the past emotional baggage around, punishing myself. The hate is still inside me. I have realised that whenever we refuse to move on, we prevent new things entering into our life. The ones we are punishing isn't the other person, but myself. When we let go of the past, we are in essence allowing new things to enter into our lives. If I want to attract new possibilities, I need to first release the old baggage I am having on to. 

Allah swt commands us to forgive. It's not optional. There is absolutely nothing that is impossible to forgive with Allah's help. With really traumatic events, we must work through pain and the grief as well. We may also have a new normal that must be adapted to if life changes are a consequence to what's happened. Someone close to me reminded me that forgiving is not just sweeping something under the rug and pretending it did't happen. That will only come back to haunt us later.  

Indeed, there is one way to heal. It is not one way among many. It is the only way. Allah swt invented it. We call it forgiving. Truthfully, I believe that there's always a place for healing, and forgiveness can help us heal. I hope someday I'll find it in my heart to forgive you.