The hardest person to forgive might not be the one you think.
It might be you.
The hardest part of forgiveness, of course, is what it requires.
I mean, how cool would it be if we could just forgive where it made sense, allowing for hurt feelings and reasonable exceptions.
Most people do it this way, after all.
But no.
“Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
The rub of it is that blasted little part.
One Sunday when I was struggling with this, the Scripture reading came from the sixth chapter of Luke: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” Now, try as I might, I cannot find a loophole in that. It does not say, “Forgive everyone, unless they’ve said something rude about your child.” And it doesn’t even say, “Just try.” It says, If you want to be forgiven, if you want to experience that kind of love, you have to forgive everyone in your life—everyone, even the very worst boyfriend you ever had—even, for God’s sake, yourself.
-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies