Forgiveness

Today, my daughter had a bowl of sweets that she was relishing and eager to eat, whilst sitting downstairs with her brother he accidentally knocked a cup of water all over them. I could hear that she was angry and not willing to accept his plea for forgiveness.
I called them both upstairs, had them seated next to each other, and I explained to my daughter, that sometimes mistakes happen, and according to the Jewish Religion, when someone sincerely and honestly apologizes to the wronged individual and tries to rectify the wrong, the wronged individual is religiously required to grant forgiveness.



I truly believe that the world is cosmic, so much of life seems far to amazing for it all to be simply coincidence. I believe one just has to open their eyes and ears and listen to what the world and God are trying to show us.
The past week has been an extremely trying week, it has been a week full of emotion, pain and hardship. In the past week I have tested my wife's capacity to forgive, but ironically others have tested my capacity for forgiveness as well. Our best of friends made a grave mistake, and pushed the limit of that what any friendship could possibly endure.
I too was tested not once, but several times this week by my "ex" boyfriend, with many revelations, leaving me hurt, pained and confused.

William Blake said: "It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." This is probably true, because with a friend or even a loved one, we allow access to our hearts and we allow ourselves to become vulnerable, so when they wrong us, we have given them the greatest capacity to hurt us. Often it feels like the ultimate betrayal and we struggle to find the reasoning as to why it is that someone we cared about so much could possibly hurt us, and often the pain comes from us feeling regret for letting that person into our hearts.

I have never been the softest of people, my Mom always said that if my hand "pissed" me off enough, I would cut it off. I seemed to have a capacity when someone angered me to remove them from my life with little regard or remorse.
Today, as I sit her, I can say I have changed. Forgiveness is not a show of weakness, but perhaps of great strength. I too realise that love and caring is not a switch that can simply be flipped on and off, and that simply removing someone from our lives is not all that easy.
Yes anger is a natural emotion, and one that is hard to avoid, but it serves little purpose, and forgiveness is the only key to unlock that anger and pain.

I asked my wife is she sees me as less of a man, to which she replied, "No not less of a man, but I see you as a human now." I have made terrible mistakes over the past few months, I know this, but would I change them? No, no I would not. I have learnt so much from my mistakes, I have allowed myself to grow, improve, and gained some understanding about life itself, I have taken the opportunity to tell the whole truth, and now my task is to rectify the wrong as best as I can.
For me forgiveness now comes easily, because I understand what it is like to want that forgiveness, and I know what the pain feels like, but most of all, I understand how easy it is to make a mistake.

I am torn, depleted and emotionally exhausted, I have endured so much in a journey where all I wanted was to understand myself. I tried so hard not to hurt anyone in the process, but I did and I think I hurt myself most of all.
In my absolute hunger to be able to be true to myself, i picked a road full of lies and deceit. My family deserved more from me, my wife rightfully expected so much, because she in turn had given me so much, however I did the best that i could, I am after all only human.
i am blessed and extremely lucky, that through it all, I can still look at my wife and see love in her eyes, I am blessed that she has been able to teach me what true forgiveness feels like, because now I want to be able to pass that on.

I love my wife and my family so much, they are my entire world, there is very little I would not give or do for them. And now as a show of that promise, I am here, home.. I have not promised to stop searching, or to pretend that I do not have gay feelings, but I have resolved that I am here, here to fight, to make right, to support and figure it all out.
In doing this I leave a wonderful man behind, and although everything in my brain tells me to "cut off my hand" and let him go, my heart tells me that I can't....

Life is not simple, and the decisions we make are not always black and white, however the one thing that I do know is that true love exists in forgiveness. I have seen it so much over the past week culminating in my daughter forgiving her brother. Yes she lost out on her sweets, but what she does not realise is that she ended up getting and giving something far greater.
My greatest challenge now, is learning to forgive myself....