What is required to forgive someone? First, I guess, an openness to be vulnerable to the hurt caused; to expose the bruised and battered heart because forgiveness necessitates pain and then, with great hope, healing.

It takes time to come to forgiveness, depending on what needs to be forgiven. And then comes the very difficult work of rebuilding trust. I don’t like this kind of vulnerable. I would rather bury pain and hurt. I know that is not a good thing because it wears you down like a soul anchored in a deep dark. And yet, there are some things that I don’t know if we can come to forgiveness on- I mean how do you forgive rape or murder? I don’t know.

I do take it to prayer, but I don’t always listen for the answer, or maybe I just don’t want to hear it. I tell God there is  no way He can understand the anguish. Really Sally, God can’t understand? Facing the fact that God can understand, hits me right upside the head with my own inability or unwillingness to forgive, on such a much more microscopic scale than God’s forgiveness extended to me.

So what is the secret formula for forgiving? For moving on? For not carrying the scars around etched in your spirit? I have no idea. I turn to the Psalms, and I find solace in my horses and in my run. And in those I love and who love me.