²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[g]

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Dear God, does being resentful mean unforgiveness? There is one person in my life who hurt me a few years ago. They are the person who comes to mind whenever I ask myself if there is anyone I haven’t forgiven. This person did something that I felt betrayed me for their own selfish gain. I am publicly nice to them. I don’t trash the person to other people. But at the same time the hurt that they caused me is still there. If I see them in public I don’t want to talk with them. I don’t think I would go out of my way to help them unless it was something they really needed. But I don’t know if that means unforgiveness.

I guess I need to figure out what it means to forgive. Does it really mean to send something away from myself as far as the east is from the west? I know women who are victims of sexual abuse. What does forgiveness look like for them? How does one really turn loose of that kind of pain (for the record, what was done to me is nothing compared to something like sexual abuse)? In order to forgive us, you had to sacrifice your own son and look at us through his pure and holy death. You don’t see me alone, but me through Him. I don’t have that luxury.

Father, I don’t want to disappoint you because of my inability to adequately forgive someone. Please show me what it means to love my enemies. Please show me what it means to truly forgive. If Judas had lived, I wonder how the disciples would have dealt with their bitterness towards him. Could they have seen, in retrospect, that Jesus needed to die to fulfill the plan, or would they have seen that Jesus needed to die, but Judas didn’t have to betray him to make it happen, and therefore had a hard time forgiving him? I don’t know. But I know that I still resent this person, and if it is holding me back from receiving more of you or any of your forgiveness, then I will work on it. I will pay attention to it. I will strive to completely forgive.