Wise Words on Wednesday: Finally Forgiving
“…Do you know, only a few weeks ago I realised suddenly that I at last had forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood.
C.S. Lewis to Mary Willis Shelburne (1963)
I’d been trying to do it for years: and like you, each time I thought I’d done it, I found, after a week or so it all had to be attempted over again.
But this time I feel sure it is the real thing. And (like learning to swim or to ride a bicycle) the moment it does happen it seems so easy and you wonder why on earth you didn’t do it years ago.
So the parable of the unjust judge comes true, and what has been vainly asked for years can suddenly be granted. I also get a quite new feeling about ‘If you forgive you will be forgiven.’ I don’t believe it is, as it sounds, a bargain. The forgiving and the being forgiven are really the very same thing. But one is safe as long as one keeps on trying”
Wow, “O God forgive us”, what a great song! This seems like a good way to begin my birthday…
Lewis had previously said that he thought chastity was the most unpopular thing in Christianity. In today’s episode, he changes his mind, suggesting that it is, in fact, forgiveness.
