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The other veteran replied, “Never! I will never forgive them for what they did to me!” 

His friend put his hand on his shoulder and compassionately replied, “It sounds like they still have you in their prison.” 

If we are the victims of someone else’s abuse, rejection, or exploitation, extending forgiveness to our offender goes against every fiber in our being. It makes no sense to give something so precious to the villains in our story when they’ve already taken so much from us. And the last thing we want at this point is for someone to suggest that the way we’re feeling about the scoundrel who hurt us could be wrong. 

But forgiveness is not about the person who hurt me, it’s more about me. No one grows more, learns more, and benefits more than the one doing the forgiving. When I refuse to forgive, not only do I have to deal with the pain that was inflicted upon me originally, but now I place myself in my own jail cell with bars made of anger and resentment, which makes it even worse. However, I can choose to forgive and set myself free from the pain that would linger in my heart. 

That’s what Steven McDonald discovered about forgiveness. 

In 1986 NYPD officer Steven McDonald was shot three times and left for dead. Though he miraculously survived, he was left paralyzed from the neck down. He and his wife, Patti Ann, had been married for less than a year and she was three months pregnant. Steven became completely helpless for even the most routine of tasks. 

After their son, Conor, was born, Steven realized that harboring unforgiveness was only affecting him—and he didn’t want to be a father who was bitter and angry, so he began to pray that God would change him from the inside. “I wanted to free myself of all the negative, destructive emotions that [the] act of violence had unleashed in me: anger, bitterness, hatred. . . . I needed to free myself of those emotions so I could love my wife and our child and those around us.”2 

This journey included forgiving Shavod Jones, the young man who had shot him and was now in prison. As he worked to forgive, not only did he find freedom, but incredibly, the two became friends and corresponded. “I forgave Shavod because I believe the only thing worse than receiving a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart. Such an attitude would have extended my injury to my soul, hurting my wife, son, and others even more. It’s bad enough that the physical effects are permanent, but at least I can choose to prevent spiritual injury.”3 

Offering forgiveness is for our benefit. Don’t think of it as doing a special courtesy for the bad guy in your story. This is about and for you.