From childhood to adulthood we're constantly faced with people who let us down. This may be something as small in scale as your best friend talking about you behind your back when you're both fifteen or it could relate to something as catastrophic as the Holocaust.
When I attended Michael Henderson's lecture on his new book No Enemy to Conquer, I did not know what to expect. His lecture was based on sharing the stories of reconciliation that he has come across in his 50-year career.
The main conflicts that he spoke about were the Catholic/Protestant conflict in Ireland and the Holocaust in the Second World War. He described how, even when people are subjected to horrific pain and upset, some eventually rise above it and forgive the people who hurt them.
This lecture taught me many things. I'd never truly considered what forgivness was to me. The conclusion I've came to since attending the lecture is that forgivness cannot be forced, it has to have the right timing and that, If you want forgivness and reconciliation, you have to earn it.
What I took away from the lecture was this: if you don't have it in you to forgive someone who has wronged you, you are the person who is being punished as living your life with bitterness and sadness is no life at all.
Hayley Nunan
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