Forgive and Forget Not

I don’t necessarily agree with the phrase “forgive and forget”.  When I am wronged by someone, it is always my goal to forgive, but I don’t necessarily want to forget what happened.  You see we can allow the memory to fade, to not be constantly at the forefront of our minds, but if we forget completely we are leaving the window open for the offense to happen again.  We can take responsibility to protect ourselves from becoming victims again.  We remain in control of our happiness by setting boundaries and controlling who we let be a part of our lives or how much they can be a part of our lives.  We teach others how to treat us.  (Hawkins, Dollahite, & Draper, 2012)

This is a lesson I had to learn very young in life.  Of all the places that should be safe to have friends, I was bullied at church.  I had to realize that I didn’t go to church to make friends.  I went to church because I loved the gospel.  I wasn’t going to allow these mean girls to keep me from church.  I could act kind and cordial to them and pretend to get along, but not have to be best friends and hang out with them outside of church.

From these experiences I developed and fine-tuned my “Cray-dar” (crazy radar) as one friend calls it.  I have learned to pick up on the crazy vibes women let off early on so I know that to keep myself from getting hurt I shouldn’t let the friendship go past a certain point.  There are LOTS of crazies out there, but I have been able to weed through and find the ones that are truly golden friends.  So It’s not that I don’t have any friends at all, I just stay in control of the types of friends I let in closer while still being kind to everyone.

This can be applied to other relationships as well.  In our families if trust has been broken, we can forgive but we still need to set boundaries to help insure that the offense doesn’t happen again.  It’s just helping you both stay accountable.  (Hawkins, Dollahite, & Draper, 2012)

Forget-me-nots Image Source:  http://outlandishobservations.blogspot.com/2012/04/friday-fun-facts-4202012.html