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You stated that you have given up your right for retribution and turned your anger and bitterness toward the OM to God. Further, you have commited OM into God's hands. This is pretty much what my Christian counselor has told me to do with OW. My question is this: Is that not forgiveness? In other words, if you were to forgive OM, what more would you do? What would that look like?
beginning again - Some folks would call that "Forgiveness," as there are some elements of forgiveness in there. But forgiveness IS forgiving the sin, the "debt that is owed," not my "right" to just retribution. "Turning the other cheek," for example, is NOT the same thing as forgiving the sinner or the abuser.
But let's talk for a minute about what biblical forgiveness is. It is first and foremost a PROMISE that you make to the one you are granting forgiveness to. The most concise way to explain that that I have found was contained in a pamphlet our MC gave us when we began counseling. I have emailed that same pamphlet to many people who have requested it and would do the same for you if you want it. If you do, just drop me an email at
mbforeverhers@yahoo.com and include who you are on MB so I'll recognize you. The pamphlet is titled, "What Do You Do When Your Marriage Goes Sour?" by Jay E. Little.
In the meantime, here is the pertinent section from that pamphlet that discusses WHAT forgiveness for a Christ is:
"Forgiveness is not feeling first either. It is fundamentally a promise. When you put your faith in Christ as your Savior, God promised to remember your sins against you no more. That does not mean that He forgets; God never forgets anything. What it means is that He never brings up those sins to use them against you again. When you forgive one another, therefore, you are promising to do three things about his wrong doings. You promise:
1. I shall not use them against you in the future.
2. I shall not talk to others about them.
3. I shall not dwell on them myself.
Just as the only way to begin to feel right toward another is to being to do right toward him, so the only way to feel properly toward another, and ultimately even to forget those wrongs that he has done to you, is to keep the threefold promise that you make when you say ‘I forgive you.’ You see, you don’t have to feel forgiving in order to grant forgiveness; you just have to forgive. Against all feelings to the contrary, Christ told us that we must forgive a brother seven times a day if he comes saying ‘I repent’ (Luke 17:4). Does that clarify things for you?”"
"In other words, if you were to forgive OM, what more would you do? What would that look like? "It would look like the above Threefold Promise. It would look like the Master who forgave his servant and "unpayably huge debt" and then the Servant should have forgiven a fellow repentant believer. It is NOT in my power to forgive sin against God. I CAN forgive sin against me, but I choose to forgive AS I have been forgiven...and that requires repentance and surrender to God. I can choose to "Forgive" on the "easy level," (not seeking retribution), but on the "sin level," that requires something from the sinner first, if that makes sense to you.
God bless.
