Love and Forgiveness are both essential for True Love!!! Most people find forgiveness the most difficult aspect of love. To forgive others and to be forgiven ourselves is quite a challenging experience! Yet, this is essential for the repairing of any loving relationship.

Once we have the ability to forgive others, or forgive ourselves, we are on the way to once again exist in that reality of love - the meaning of life.

Not being able to forgive, or be forgiven, tears away at our very self. We feel less of a full human person. We feel damaged and sometimes even irreparably so. We feel that love is less in our lives or even missing.

Some people will claim that forgiveness is not always necessary. That time will heal all wounds. That all we need to do is to get on with our lives. I believe that on most occasions this is just a cop out, a search for an easy way out - yet not a real solution. (Unfortunately, some circumstances may lead to this through unexpected circumstances e.g. loss, departure or death of one party involved.) Even if most of the hurt can be forgotten with time, there is always some remnant of hurt, of inescapable pain, somewhere in the conscious or subconscious. This pain will invariably rise to the surface in the future, most likely when a similar circumstance prevails as was originally the hurtful situation.

We need to offer forgiveness if we are the perpetrator of the harm. We need to take that most challenging step to begin the process of recovery, the process of reconciliation. When we offer forgiveness the person who has been hurt has the opportunity to begin the process of returning to love.

If we are the ones harmed, and an offer of forgiveness is not forthcoming from the other person or group of people, we may need to expedite the situation through diplomatically giving them the chance to begin the reconciliation process. Diplomacy is often the best method, however for some people a more direct approach is necessary, but still needs to be done out of love, in a caring and respectful way.

When we are offered forgiveness we have the opportunity to begin to be reconciled. We need to accept the offer as soon as possible and work towards repairing the relationship.

The process may be quick and clean. However, it also may take time depending on our personal history with the person involved, as well as own personality.

We often need to forgive ourselves. This can be quite difficult. We need to learn to accept our own forgiveness and move on, just as we do when accepting forgiveness from others or when we offer others forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a crucial aspect in any loving relationship. To forgive allows the relationship to return to its proper loving place.

The 'Love and Forgiveness - True Love' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), - the paperback and ebook manual for Church communications and marketing personnel - 304 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points, which allow for a considerably large number of quality stategies and examples to be detailed and available for church marketing personnel - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com