Everyone has to battle with the concept of trust and forgiveness at some point of their lives with someone in their lives that they care strongly about. Lately, I’ve been seeing these 2 things going hand-in-hand with each other, because without initially trusting someone, how can you really forgive them? I feel that on some level, if you don’t forgive someone, it is sort of like saying you don’t trust that they won’t do it again.
At some point or another, the person that has done some type of wrong to you is going to ask you to forgive them, and trust that they won’t do whatever it was they did again. It always sounds something like this:
“Please forgive me. I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to change. Trust me.”
“I won’t do that again, I promise.”
These are just examples, but you get the picture. Now, at this point, you are faced with a dilemma: You have to figure out whether you are going to trust that they are telling the truth, and find a way to forgive them of their transgressions, and try to move forward with your lives.
Let’s face it, people lie to you and they abuse your trust at some point in life. I believe that in some cases, people will try and test you and see just how many times they can get over on you with the same thing, and you continuously forgive them before the straw breaks the camel’s back. You can go on for days, weeks, months or even years consistently saying “I’ll give you one more chance” and hope that the time you say it is the last time; however, that person you are in the heat of it with has other plans for you.
Over the years, I have found that this is possibly one of the hardest combinations to have to handle. Most people find it hard to continue to forgive a person numerous times after you have gone through countless battles and disagreements with that person. You often wonder “why am I even bothering with this anymore?” Chances are, this is a person that means a lot to you and you want to see the very best in them. For this reason, you muster up enough to say “hey, I think things will be different this time.” Sometimes you succeed, sometimes it’s an epic fail and the cycle continues to plague you.
So, with this big, fat, ugly dilemma; what happens when you lose the ability to forgive someone for something they have done to you? What happens when you can no longer trust a friend or loved one who means a lot to you because of the battles you have faced with them? And what if that person has changed for the better, how do you battle with forgiving that person and having trust in their changed ways?
For once, I don’t have an answer of my own to share; as I am continuing to find the answers within myself on how to go about this aspect in my life. It is not easy, and I pray to find a way for it to work for me (were always a working progress in some aspect of life). I believe it does take a lot of strength and growth to move past something like this, because trust is a big deal. When you can’t trust someone, everything seems to have a domino effect.
I hope that for all of you, you have ways to deal with these things and if you do, please share. I think it could really help someone battling with this specific aspect of life. 🙂
