How to Be Forgiven

I think of myself at times as a perfectionist, so when things don’t go my way, I get annoyed it didn’t go the way I planned. And this in turn, causes frustration in my life. Then the frustration gives me a sense of havoc and disappointment.

Many times I have been given forgiveness by God through my parents. When I was younger, the activity I liked to do was to play with tapes. I would unwind the tape from the cassette and attempted to hide the tape under the bed. My parents would then see what I did, and scolded me for it, but then I was back to doing what I did best, unwinding the tapes. Eventually I grew out of this and moving on to other mischief. But the forgiveness of my parents for doing the things I did was so great that I remembered those childhood days as carefree days.


By: Vincent

Another thing I remember doing in my teenage years was stealing money. It was around the time I was caught for the third time that I finally repented. This time, the forgiveness came in the way of me getting kicked out of the house – as if getting kicked out was a good thing. But in my opinion it really was good that I got kicked out. It made me appreciate the things I had and the hard effort one had to do for money. Understanding this concept, I never again had temptation for stealing money. Again, the forgiveness of my parents towards my actions led me to becoming better and gave me strong morals and values.

Lately, I have been receiving forgiveness from my girlfriend, my better half. Earlier, I mentioned being a perfectionist. So when things don't go my way, I tend to get annoyed and irritated. Through her patience, understanding, and love for God, it seems she's able to forgive me so easily and so, often, I feel remorse about how I behaved very quickly. One advice she mentions after I've said my sorry is “let’s be in a race to become a better person, not to be a bad person.” And so through her, I am able to feel God's forgiveness to me and in fact, feeling encouragement for me to become the best version of myself. Praise be to God.

Being forgiven by God is something mind-blowing. It is not merited upon us doing well, but it is merited in His infinite love for us. And as long as we repent for our sins, we can come back to His grace. Through the Church, God gives the gift of sacrament of reconciliation. How refreshing it is coming out of the confession after confessing my sin! And just as He freely gives me forgiveness, I too must give forgiveness in the same way. God’s infinite love can be taken as long as we’re capable of forgiving others as well. There is a prayer that Jesus mentioned, “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” (Matthew 6:11-12a) and this is the forgiveness that is talked, about forgiving others to receive forgiveness from God – like forgiving the person who started a rude conversation with me or the rejection of my internship position, or the person that cut me off at the freeway. I’m forgiving these people because God has first forgiven me. And since I want to be forgiven for my sin, so I too must forgive. How happy it is to be forgiven by God.

By: Vincent Setiono