Seven Steps to Forgiveness

[Gail]

As outlined by R.T. Kendall on the Focus on the Family website:

Seven Steps to Forgiveness:

1. Do not let anyone know what someone said about, or did to you.

2. Do not allow anyone to be afraid of you or intimated by you.

3. Allow them to forgive themselves and not feel guilty.

4. Let them save face.

5. Protect them from their darkest secret and greatest fear.

6. It is a lifelong commitment.

7. Pray for them to be blessed.

What forgiveness is NOT:

- Approval of what they did

- Excusing what they did

- Justifying what they did

- Pardoning what they did

- Reconciliation

- Denying what they did.

[Stan]

forgiveness seems more important for healing the victim than it is for the perpetrator..

Doesn't seem quite fair.... does it?

[Liz]

1. Do not let anyone know what someone said about, or did to you.

This one seems dangerous. While on the surface it "sounds" like the right thing to do, under that surface this one allows the perpetrator to make more victims.

[Gail]

Quote:

This one seems dangerous. While on the surface it "sounds" like the right thing to do, under that surface this one allows the perpetrator to make more victims.

This needs a clarification:

The context is after you have made the decision to forgive that person. What the author was saying here is if after having done that you still feel the need to tell others about the deed, you haven't completely forgiven the person.

[Gail]

forgiveness seems more important for healing the victim than it is for the perpetrator..

Doesn't seem quite fair.... does it?

Who is most affected by the offense?

Quite often either the perp either doesn't know s/he has offended anyone or has forgotten about it.

There's a very interesting chapter about this also in Mike Jones' book, Sometimes I Don't Feel Like Praying

[Liz]

Quote:

This one seems dangerous. While on the surface it "sounds" like the right thing to do, under that surface this one allows the perpetrator to make more victims.

This needs a clarification:

The context is after you have made the decision to forgive that person. What the author was saying here is if after having done that you still feel the need to tell others about the deed, you haven't completely forgiven the person.

I don't mean to argue, but this is wrong too. I can forgive someone for what they did to me, but I still have a moral obligation to tell others, so that they can protect themselves from this perp. especially if it is a particularly evil thing that this person did.

That is why I say "on the surface" this sounds like the right thing to do, but in reality it needs to be done on a case by case situation.