Hope and Forgiveness

Supposedly it's best to not discuss politics or religion with other people. But, since we've already had lengthy political discussion on here, I don't want religion to be left behind. So, here's a religious topic I've been thinking about in the last few days.

First of all, I've been thinking about hope. Hearing about the heartaches some of my dear family and friends have to go through has been tough, and I feel so sad to think about the pain those I care about must feel about their various challenges. One thing though that kept coming up with these things was the issue of hope. It seemed some people had lost hope or felt there was no hope for them, others have kept hope. I started wondering what the heck hope is anyway, and why some would have it and others would lose it. It seemed to me that hope is present when numbers are in your favor (like a mortality rate or something - if 90% survive a certain illness, the numbers are in your favor, and you're hopeful to make it as well). If the numbers are not in your favor, you're less likely to be hopeful. But then I thought "wait a minute". Isn't hope to believe something is possible regardless of numbers, evidence, or factual knowledge - to believe in the unseen, the things that can't be guaranteed or proven? I realized hope has nothing to do with numbers, but simply with our desire to hope. No one knows the future. No one can say with certainty what will or will not happen. I realized that, as hard as certain things may be (and I realize that some challenges are definitely more than I could ever handle), we can always hope if we want to. The future may seem dark and dreary, but who's to say that there will not be a job offer around the corner, a change of nature, a spouse, a pregnancy, a sudden recovery, a change of heart - a miracle in other words. What I love most about the Gospel of Christ is the nature of hopefulness. It encourages us to believe against the odds, or against the numbers, to hope for the better things, to hope that one day things will be right, and miracles will come our way. I realize when we are surrounded by trials so hard and tough, it can feel impossible to hope for anything. But, as Anne of Green Gables said "Tomorrow is always fresh". We don't know the future, and because we don't, we can always hope. Isn't that cool? I'm glad there is hope, or else I think anything hard would not only be hard, but eventually just crush us.

The other thing that's been on my mind has been forgiveness. That's a tough one. It's never been very hard for me to apologize, especially when I was at fault. I've also never had a hard time forgiving people I love if they hurt me or offended me or whatever. However, how do you forgive someone who doesn't even care about what they did to you? In the last few weeks, I've been thinking back on my day care job I had a year ago. That job was miserable beyond description, and I seriously busted my a** for a place that treated their employees almost like slaves. I worked so hard, with no support, and sometimes no compensation. I was ready to leave because I couldn't stand it, but was talked into staying, just to get fired 3 weeks later. I've been really bitter over this for many reasons. One was that the mere fact of being fired made me feel pretty worthless (even when I realize that I worked for a jerk, and that this may have had nothing to do with my abilities or qualifications). It has made me question myself a lot. It's also been annoying because I feel like this killed my resume. I'm a bad liar, and I think getting fired, kept me from getting other good jobs afterwards, because I had to say that I got fired. I couldn't even tell them why, because my boss never really told me why he fired me. Anyway, I've had really negative feelings towards this employer, and now that a year has passed, I realize I still hate the guy. I keep hoping his day care will burn down (of course, not when the kids are there), or I wish I could just egg his car or slash his tires, or maybe just punch him in the face. This may seem extreme to you. I think it is, because I can't recall a time where I had such feelings towards anyone, and it made me realize that I haven't moved on at all and I definitely haven't forgiven the guy. It's sad to me that I have such a hard time to let it go, while he probably doesn't even really remember my name. He couldn't care less how I feel or what he did to me, but here am I, totally upset and bitter about this part of my life and I really struggle to forgive the guy. I don't want to. I'd much rather hurt him somehow...so, how do we forgive? How come I don't find any comfort to think that Heavenly Father loves him, too? Or that maybe he had a bad childhood, or...

How DO we truly forgive those who've wronged us? I never realized that forgiveness can be so hard. Maybe I need to focus more on how I've been forgiven to be able to forgive him...