I do not know how to say this any more clearly: forgiveness is the truest expression of love. There is no greater pain but no greater joy than asking for forgiveness, either to forgive, or to be forgiven. In the former, we are the forgiver, and in the latter we are the forgiven.
To be sure, each of those is a difficult position but they are both sweet like the purest water, healing like cool aloe rubbed upon the wounds of the heart. For the forgiven, they are forced to face love head on. For the forgiver, they are forced to love face-to-face.
Neither is an easy thing to do, but they are both the finest acts of love. Asking for forgiveness demands that we accept and face our own flaws and transgressions. But scrubbing a donkey's stall is dirty business; why would asking for forgiveness be any different.
The other side of this coin, the side of the forgiver, is equally challenging. The forgiver is forced to be emptied of all the junk of pain and anger. It takes a mighty arm and an outstretched hand to clean out a dirty closet full of embitterment and old baggage.
In the end, however, there is no sweeter cure to sick relationships, no purer tourniquet for the broken heart. And though it will almost certainly be painful, there is no richer demonstration of true love than to seek and to offer forgiveness.
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