It came to my attention that I find it particularly difficult to forgive someone who I don’t personally know. This sounds a little odd, but if you think about it, this happens pretty frequently in life; someone you don’t know doing something to hurt you.
When I took the time to try and forgive my “unknown” I found it much easier to be petty. And bitter. And downright nasty! It was not something I was proud of, so I would only let my “petty out” with people I really trusted. But this petty would boil over and I realized I was very ashamed of it.
So I dug in.
Forgiving someone I knew well seemed to come more naturally- but why? I decided it was because I could attend to the good things I knew about them and see them as a human. No one is all bad. When you have no good qualities or moments to focus on it’s easy to make the “unknown” inhuman. Thus, all the petty freely flowing onto them.
What to do with the unknown?
It’s not like I wanted to get to know the “unknown”. Nor would I even get that option.
So I asked around.
People outside of your circle are best since they can give you an unshaded answer. (Your friends will only tell you the worst thing they ever heard!)
Once you know something good about the “unknown” you can hold onto it to remind you of their humanity.
My inner pettiness seems to lessen when I can see the other person as a human.
I would like to say that I can see them as an image bearer of God, but I just couldn’t write that yet….
Still working on this process of forgiveness.