For any human being it’s not easy to forgive, it requires some hard steps. Our ego may be hurt, sometimes our feelings are, or someone did harm us in a big way.
An overwhelming effort is needed, so why is it an imperative necessity to try forgiving one another?
To illustrate my point, I will borrow a story from a short speech given by Cardinal Jean Pierre Kutwà, the Archbishop of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.
“A train stopped at the railway station”, he said, “a lady jumped into the train, here came some teenagers who started shoving her around in a very disruptive way.
Every single person was shocked by their disrespectful behavior, but the lady didn’t utter a mere word. She stayed quiet while the teenagers continued to be noisy. A gentleman tried to interpose himself. She told him “doesn’t matter because I will get out soon” ”.
Let’s try our hardest to be forgiving like this lady because we also are going to get out soon; the train of life is short. How long will I live? Even if I were to live for a hundred years, it’s still short.
It is not worthy to waste our time in unnecessary fights, since we don’t know the day, the time and the place. This is striking, especially during this Covid-19 pandemic where, more surprisingly, so many lives are taken away. Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t speak out when something is wrong, we just need to ponder upon our behavior.