Forgiveness keeps coming back. Probably because we never get done with it. It’s a messy, uncomfortable business. It’s hard to admit we were lacking or we missed the mark. (yeah, we were wrong.) It’s hard to acknowledge another’s human foibles. Sometimes it’s hard to forgive people for being better than we are at something we want to be good at.

And all of those things create a large barrier between us and Peace.

You know me, I’m not a new age forgiver. I believe that much of forgiveness is that verb we used yesterday… accept… as in accept the fact that we cannot change what has happened to us. I don’t know that you forgive your rapist, or if you do what that looks like. I do know if you do, a large portion of that forgiveness will have to be meted out toward yourself for having been vulnerable. I know I’m not at the place where I can let the rapists of my friends off the hook… but maybe forgiveness doesn’t do that. but it does acknowledge their humanity, however broken, whether or not they had a reason.

But if we can take down those bricks in the way of Peace, we won’t have to climb over them, or squeeze through the cracks between them every time we want to move forward in Love. That would help our hearts enormously.