Justice and mercy are both aspects of ethics and steps in the process of forgiveness, but many wrongly misunderstand them as opposing virtues that cannot be reckoned. This misunderstanding revictimizes the wounded many times over. Another post discusses how a person can get through the first hard stages of the forgiveness process, particularly if they've suffered harmful and chronic maltreatment.
These are huge topics for people who have been deeply wounded and don't know where to start on the journey of forgiving, especially when those first steps feel nothing like what most of us envision when we think of forgiveness' final destination.
If anyone reading here has good
material on the subject that they'd like to see included, please send
it on to me. I'm learning right along with everyone else.
As for the rest of the discussion of
forgiveness, here are the remaining topics that I hope to finish as
we approach the holiday season. Considering that the holidays can
really test us as we work out our relationships with family, I hope
they can be of some help. I still often feel like the blind leading
the blind when talking about this subject, but I hope that others can
at least glean from my mistakes. Life is a journey, and I've
certainly not arrived! I'm happy just to tickle people enough to
think more deeply about the subject. From here, I have grand yet
humble plans to explore...
Less Than Ideal Forgiveness With
Less Than Perfect People
- The Other Type of Forgiveness: Releasing the Offender's Debt While Standing Firmly on the Nature of the Wrong
- Finding A Peaceful Compromise with Family, Friends, and Enemies (...sometimes, that's a DMZ)
- Joyce Landorf Heatherley's “Irregular People” (Understanding Shame Based Personalities)
- Understanding Personal Differences, Personality Style Conflict, and the Weaker Brother
- Understanding the Narcissistic (How to be both wise and innocent)
- Developing Realistic Expectations About Relationships in Forgiveness
- A Brief Introduction to Boundaries in Forgiveness
- Becoming a “Hard Target” for Harm While Available to Love
- Tips for Communicating with the “Irregular People” in Your Life
- Respecting Boundaries When Pursuing Forgiveness (Toward Developing an “Internal Locus of Control”)
Fostering Both Forgiveness and
Reconciliation
- Developing an Atmosphere of Trust to Foster Forgiveness and Reconciliation
- Trust versus Boundary Busters
- Apologies and the “Apologies that Aren't”
- Rejected Forgiveness and Gothard's Sick, Bizarre Teaching About Begging Your Offender's Forgiveness for Feeling Offended
- Rejected Reconciliation
- The Dangers of Merging Forgiveness with Reconciliation: The Painful Legacy of Peacemaker Ministries
Other Personal Themes in Forgiveness
- Benefits of and Motives in Forgiveness (Christianity vs. Pop Culture)
- Forgiving God and Surrendering to “Thy Will Be Done” After Spiritual Abuse
- Forgiving the Church
- Forgiving Ourselves
- Sage Wisdom about Forgiveness from Corrie Ten Boom
Forgiveness Book and Resource List
