Sacred Amnesia

How do you forgive the unforgivable?Being that I've been walking around inside skin for some years now, I've had my fair share of hurt at the hands of others. I won't pretend that forgiveness has come as naturally as breathing. It's something I've had to work at, decide to do and then practice until I got there. This doesn't seem strange at all to me since I'm not Jesus. I figure the proper use of the minutes between my salvation and final redemption in heaven is to learn to think like he thinks and be what he is. It's no surprise that this takes a good deal of effort and lots of messing up.One of the by-products of forgiveness is a kind of spiritual amnesia. I'm fascinated by the concept of God forgetting my sins being that he's God and all. Some years ago I realized that the humanistic idea that "I"ll forgive but never forget" was in direct opposition to what God does and so it's a bit of a bastardization of the concept, isn't it? Forgive is forgetting if we're to allow God's definition to trump our own.Oh, I'm hardly suggesting that this is so easy to actually accomplish here in the real world, inside of this human skin. What I'm saying is that this is where the ego must be put aside and the humble prayer must be prayed, "God, let me forgive like you do." That is if you agree that forgiving is God's for the defining. He doesn't have a secondary form of forgiveness that includes memory and the occasional mention. Your sins, and mine, are cast as far as the east is from the west. The sins committed against me however are merely thrown as far as today is from tomorrow. In mere hours I'm likely to re-examine them. I've something of a hopeless chest where I can store my hurts and sit back self-righteously admiring all the hits I've taken to prove to myself how very lovely a person I am, having forgiven all these creeps.Ah, but my own sins are gone. Truly and forever gone. Forgotten by God himself. It has forced me to reconsider my fondling of the trespasses I have endured to wonder if I have not forgiven after all. If I have not forgiven, am I myself forgiven? This has shaken me with a terror deep enough to make me beg God for the ability to bestow that holy forgiveness I so require. I want the forgiveness that erases the sin from memory. Must I therefore, in even exchange, allow my own memories to fade with my forgiveness of others?I think so. I think I have to forgive and forget. Don't tell me human beings cannot do this. I have done it. I have forgotten. I have only the fuzziest outlines in my head of things that once utterly destroyed me. I can't tell the specific stories of my history, they are cast away from my mind by sacred forgiveness, the giver of which is not me but he who dwells within and steers this heart.How do we forgive as Jesus does? And as we need, ourselves, to be forgiven?Don't wait to be apologized to, Jesus died before you were even born much last asked for his sacrifice on your behalf.Don't talk about the offense to anyone who will tolerate your unforgiveness. Tell God your pain and ask him to to take it so you can release it as an offering to him.Refuse to go back to the hurt to examine the details of the thing. Request spiritual amnesia and sit in quiet as it washes over you.Consider the possibility of you being forgiven the way that you forgive. This should give you inspiration to seek a holy perspective.Ask now, regardless of if you've got things that need forgiving, for that heart of Jesus who is supposed to beat in your own to remake your mind. Ask for the ability to forgive and forget today. Think of it as a muscle that needs exercising before you need to you use it.Worship. Meditate on your own state of grace and let that meditation become a celebration that only wants to invite others to join in.I have been forgiven much. I will pour out the grace that has been poured in to me. I relinquish the right to remember.

John 8:10,11
Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."