Everyone experiences pain and suffering in life.  Typically, and tragically, we receive and inflict our most traumatic wounds within our closest relationships; hurting and being hurt by those we love most.  How we perceive and process these injuries holds tremendous implications for our mental, spiritual and relational health.

Forgiveness may be the most important and the most difficult thing in the world.  When we are hurt, our reflexive inclination is to respond in one of two ways: protect ourselves (flight) or lash back (fight).  Unfortunately, both of these instinctive reactions result in dysfunction, destruction, and disharmony.

Forgiveness is a powerful, spiritual practice. One of the biggest lies we can believe is that holding on to hurt and anger gives us power and control. While it is true that the initial acknowledgement of these emotions is critical to healing, holding on to it indefinitely leaves us disempowered. 

Unforgiveness is the refusal to face your vulnerability as a human being or it is the refusal to acknowledge or tend to your wounds. Facing vulnerability is to acknowledge that even the people who love us the most can and will hurt us at some point and we can't always control that. Unforgiveness that involves a refusal to acknowledge or tend to wounds comes from learned helplessness or over-identification with powerlessness or a victim mentality. 

As it says in First Thessalonians 5:18, "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."   As I have worked with teens and families over the years, I have often reflected on how much just saying "thank you" is missing.  Showing some appreciation for what your mother does or what a child adds to the family is so often over looked, when it can be such a powerful tool in healing relationships or mending old wounds.