Hello, good morning and welcome to a new week, another opportunity to make things work right. This is Monday Motivation with Jacob Kehinde Iroko!
We shall continue with the principle of FORGIVENESS. Today we shall consider seven steps to forgiveness:
- Acknowledge the pain and the hurt: when we are offended we have a feeling of resentment because we are hurt and pained. The action or inaction of the offending person costs you something and that brings the pain. Acknowledge the pain, don’t lie to yourself, don’t push down and play down the pain, embrace it! Acknowledge it! Be real to yourself and true to the offending person.
- Consider how the pain or hurt has affected you: after acknowledging the fact that you are pained and hurt, then consider the effect. Is it redeemable or not? Does it leave a permanent scar on you? Considering the effect will allow you to see that sometime the action is not as hurtful as we initially felt.
- Accept that you cannot change the past: there are some things that are irreversible. So why do you want to continues to hurt yourself by an action that is gone and cannot be changed?
- Determine to forgive: forgiveness is a conscious effort; you must determine in yourself to forgive the offending person.
- Repair: there are lots of things that will need repair. Your relationship with the offending person, your perspective of the person, your approach to the incident that leads to the offences. Repair every broken effects that the incident might have cost.
- Learn from the incident: every action or inaction has something to teach us. Learn from the incident so that you can be a better person. It’s not only the offending person that needs to learn from the whole scenario but everyone involved.
- Forgive: having done all that is above, then forgive! As I said earlier, forgiveness is a conscious thing. Forgive and move on with your life.
We shall be having another great moment next week as we continue in this discussion. Enjoy your week and God will bless you abundantly.
. Reverend Iroko is the Provost and Vicar of African Church, Saviours Cathedral, Agege, Lagos State.