Forgiveness..does it have to be so hard to do?

I received an e-mail yesterday morning from a friend..it was a nice reminder about forgiveness with a story as follows: One friend hurt the feelings of another and the person whose feelings were hurt wrote about it in the sand..a few days later, the same friend who had been hurtful did something extremely kind for that same person..this time, the person carved what had been done on a rock. When asked , "Why?" He replied, when someone does you an unkindness, write it in sand so that the winds of the day will quickly erase it ..when someone does something wonderful for you, carve it in rock so that you'll always be able to see that forever.

I thought about that for quite some time. How often do we react very differently when our feelings have been wounded..either by a careless remark, or perhaps an intentional one? Our first action, it seems, is to immediately seek to share what happened with everyone in earshot.."Do you know what he/she SAID to me today?" then it feels kind of righteous to us to hear the replies of, "Oh that was simply AWFUL." "How can you bear it?" By the time we are through telling and re-telling what happened and receiving condolences from our friends over the injury done to us we are secure in our belief that we were ill-used.

What might happen if instead, we chose to immediately forgive that person who has harmed our ego? WOW..What if we prayed for them? What if we mentally wrote that incident down in sand and then sat back and watched as the winds of that day erased the recorded event into nothingless? Imagine the abundant Grace which would be given to us ..much more sustaining than any commiseration from a friend. Imagine the peace in our souls..imagine the witness for Christ..what a difference would be made in all of our lives. With practice, I'll bet that forgiveness would become much easier for us..just a thought.