I'm just asking this rhetorically and not pertaining to any specific reply (even though some of the replies brought this on
) I'm wondering if living with regret or guilt is essentially an act of unforgiveness?
You know, I think of this Kelley guy who murdered the Texas church-goers and how ... I guess, totally incensed I was. How this low-life threw slugs in the chests of children and where the last thing they saw was this pig loser walk away. How could I possibly forgive this? Yet I know God doesn't ask for my forgiveness for others - He demands it. So.... I'm left with having to do this somehow. To accomplish this in order that my own crimes - my own abominations - can also be forgiven.
This faith we share has its hard parts, no? So we have to dig deep and yet even below, even underneath this monumental gesture of forgiveness - that of saying "you are a child of God, Devin Kelley, of whom God loves and because God loves you, then I love you too" even deeper are the things we regret. The things for which we hold our own selves accountable. The guilt we can't shake - meaning, in essence, I can't forgive my self.
Is it easier to forgive Devin Kelley? Maybe so. But forgiving only others does not achieve the absolution we deny our self.