Forgiveness is a topic that I’ve been trying to learn more about on and off over the past year or so. Most the time I’d get frustrated and have to put it away. I’ve been trying to find concrete ways of how to forgive – almost a formula, I guess. Of course, no formula exists for forgiving someone because each person is different and forgives in their own way.

Today I made a breakthrough in my study of forgiveness.

A section of the Sunday School lesson was about forgiveness. We read these two verses in Matthew 18:21-22:

“Then came Peter to him [Jesus], and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

This is a classic verse when it comes to forgiveness. When I was younger, I thought of it in terms of forgiving someone for every single offense given. That’s what the wording lends meaning to. Peter asks, “How often should I forgive my brother that does something wrong to me? Until he offends me seven times?”

We should forgive all wrong actions that are done to us. But I looked at this verse in a deeper way. The Lord said to give “until seventy times seven.” What if forgiving someone that many times – 490, to be exact – applies to one singular wound a person gave us?

This is what I mean. Two Sundays ago I was in a family ward down in Utah and forgiveness was brought up in the lesson. A woman made a comment that forgiveness is not a one time thing. She has to forgive her ex-husband every single day.

Some people can forgive at the drop of a hat and mean it. I can’t. I’ve never been able to do that. It takes me a long while to get over the initial hurt before I can move on and truly forgive the person.

A little while ago I was talking to my roommate and this little gem popped out of my mouth: “The Lord hasn’t put a time limit on forgiving something.”

I was startled when I said that, because I realized it’s true. During church today after I felt the inspiration to look up forgiveness, I looked up “immediately forgive” and “immediate forgive.” I think I might have used “forgave” as well. You know what I found?

Nothing. I found no scripture of the Lord saying, “Thou shalt immediately forgive.” There are stories of people who immediately forgive. In the subtext of scriptures the underlying message and feeling is to forgive as immediately as possible. General Authorities talk about the importance of forgiving quickly. Of course that’s the ultimate goal: having so much Christlike love towards our fellowman that we are able to forgive as soon as possible. But I never found a verse where God specifically and directly commands us to forgive immediately. In fact, that phrase took me right to the Bible Dictionary entry for “forgive.” In fact, most the time it says people “frankly” forgave [think of Nephi after his brothers begged forgiveness after tying him up and leaving him in the wilderness to die]. “Frankly” means “in an open, honest, and direct manner.” It’s important that we truthfully forgive someone and be honest about that forgiveness in our hearts.

But why is there no direct verse about immediately forgiving? [If anyone can find a verse, please let me know! I am imperfect and make mistakes in my research.]

The answer, I think, is simple: God knows that, as imperfect mortals, we’d have problems forgiving immediately. He knew it would take us practice to learn how to forgive and that it would not come naturally to some people. And how can Heavenly Father honestly condemn someone for not forgiving immediately when they’re actively trying to forgive, but only have the capability to let go of a grudge one tiny particle every single day? While in counseling my last transfer on my mission, I learned that the Lord sees progress simply as it is: progress. The tiniest step forward to Him is still a success.

There have been times I’ve felt pressured to forgive certain people from my mission because “everyone else they hurt has forgiven them already – why can’t you?” I hate the fact that I struggle with forgiveness and I’m trying to change it, but at the end of the day I still struggle with it. All I can do is try to improve on it. That’s what the Lord wants.

I’m not ashamed anymore that I’m a little slower to forgive. A year later, I can see so much progress inside myself! Maybe no one else can, but I sure can and God can. The bitterness that ruled my life for so long is very slowly ebbing away and I’m finally gaining control of my life, thoughts, and feelings again.

Over Spring break I heard this song and it quickly became my anthem. This is my fight song and I’m taking back my life from the hate. With the Lord and the Atonement, I know that one day I will be able to totally and completely forgive those six people who hurt me and feel charity towards them again.