I've recently been thinking about forgiveness and what that means for relationships between people. Forgiveness can be defined as letting go. To forgive, then, means to let go of something someone did. That doesn't seem to be so easy, though. If you let go of the wrong that was done, then you let go of any right to bring up that wrong or do you? It seems to me that forgiveness can be accomplished even if consequences of a wrong remain. A person can let go of wrongs committed, but that doesn't mean he has to be best friends with the guy who wronged him. Right? Sounds good until the guy or gal you need to forgive is your husband / wife / mother or father / son or daughter / and so on. To forgive those we are closest to takes the greatest effort. We don't just let it go and then go our separate ways. We let it (whatever it may be) go and then we go on developing the relationship with the one who wronged us. We do that because we love one another or feel some sense of obligation to one another because of our familial relationship. There is a sense of duty or obligation to the person who wronged us. Wouldn't life be grand if everyone felt a sense of duty or obligation to everyone else? If that were the case, there would probably be a whole lot more forgiving going on...