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This article originally appeared in the March 1985 issue of HIS magazine.

Lewis Smedes transformed my approach to fractured relationships. Before I read his book Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve (Harper & Row), I thought of forgiving other people as a duty. Now, I see it as a dubious pleasure I'm bound to benefit from—less like making my bed and more like eating my spinach.

Smedes, a professor of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, writes: "Recall the pain of being wronged, the hurt of being stung, cheated, demeaned. Doesn't the memory of it fuel the fire, reheat the pain again? … You are locked into a torture chamber of your making. Time should have left your pain behind; but you keep it alive to let it flay you over and over.

" … Is this fair to yourself—this wretched justice of not forgiving? … The only way to heal the pain that will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving stops the reruns of the pain."

What spinach does for Popeye's biceps, forgiveness can do for your soul. When Professor Smedes visited Chicago recently, I asked him why he emphasized the personal benefits of forgiveness so much.

Smedes: The end of forgiveness is reconciliation. But you can't always achieve it, because the person who forgives has no control over that. The reasons may be natural—if someone who hurt you dies or moves, you can't be reconciled.

Or you may have to be reconciled to a new kind of relationship. You and your friend may have grown apart because your interests or convictions have changed. Even if you forgive, you may not want to be friends again. Coming back together in the same way is just not always possible.

HIS: But you can achieve personal healing without reconciliation?

Smedes: Yes. It's ego-oriented in a way. If you've been unfairly hurt, whether by some rank titan of evil or by your nice, sweet mother, the question is "Are you going to be chained to that moment in the past? Are you going to go through continuous unfair pain? Or are you going to claim a right that divine grace gives you—to be healed of it, to be free of it?"

That's good news. We can be free from the pain of past hurts if we refuse to let it control us. Even when reconciliation is impossible, we can be healed by forgiving the person who hurt us.

Here's how it works: Smedes has outlined a four-stage process through whicb most of us pass as we forgive the hurts we don't deserve.

First comes hurt. Someone—perhaps someone you trust, like a friend, a family member or a teacher—betrays you, makes a cutting remark or treats you unfairly. And if you're at all normal, you'll feel pain.

Second comes hate. The person you formerly trusted becomes the target of your antipathy. You wish them the worst. And why not? The memory of the hurt continues to pain you.

Third comes healing. But healing comes only if you're willing to release yourself from the advantages of pain. Hate, after all, can be energizing. When we've had our flesh singed at the martyr's stake, the sense of our own holiness can fuel our self-esteem for years.

An unrealistic view of our own goodness and our enemy's evil can prevent healing. We must recognize that the person who hurt us is probably not so much a monster as a weak, needy, silly person who doesn't always act rationally—like us. Then, of course, we'll have to let go of hate and its energy. But at the same the, pain will release its grip on us.

Coming together again, the fourth stage and ultimate goal of forgiveness, is not always possible.

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46