Here's something that the amazing and wonderful Marilyn Maddox taught me.
You don't just wake up one day and think "Yeah, I'll forgive them."
It's a process.
You have to pray for God to humble you, to teach you how to use the strength he's given you, to open your heart. You need time and determination. Time because you grow away from the situation, and determination because you have to push yourself to not let the situation dig into your heart. You can't think about it all the time.
You can't sit around mumbling to yourself about how you can't forgive them. You can't think about it all the time, or else it will burn you up. You have to fight your mind so that you don't think about it. Go read a book. Call a friend. Start a project. Do something that focuses your mind on something else. When you push your mind away from it, it just becomes a part of the past. You'll learn that it doesn't hurt you anymore. You'll learn that it just doesn't matter any more. You move on.
God did this amazing thing by rescuing us from sin, because he rescued us from the flesh, from ourselves. We, as believers, do not have to give in to these earthly desires. These desires for revenge. These strange desires for this earthly satisfaction of having a scar in our lives. We can conquer these, and control ourselves. Why not use this?
So where I am right now is in the waiting stage. Not to say that I'm not doing anything, because I'm just waiting for the ability for me to forgive and move on to come. While I'm waiting, I'm praying, I'm pushing the thoughts away from me, and I'm simply forcing myself to move on. No longer can I let this inability to forgive hold me back spiritually and emotionally.
Forgiveness. It doesn't always just happen in a moment. But we can forgive with God's guidance and with the strength he has given us.
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