A Memory worth Remembering

It/ is the middle day of Memorial Day Weekend. Why is it that I think of memories I'd like to forget? I make myself flip those thoughts to fun times and people I choose to remember. Out of the blue, a friend called and asked me to go eat dinner. She understands that one has to take the bull by the horns to get through holidays and have some happy moments. Happiness is a choice. I believe that.

Is forgiveness a choice? I'm sweating that out. David Augsburger says that for Jesus, the primary issue in forgiving our neighbor (or relative, friend, or enemy) is not inner peace for oneself, nor is it moral rightness with our own consciences. Those are self-centered goals. Instead Jesus recognizes that forgiving is a painful journey, an extended wrestling with the injury, a process that is not complete until we take whatever steps are possible toward restoring, reconstructing, and rediscovering relationships with those who have offended us.

If I am getting his message, one must reconstruct a relationship for forgiveness to be complete. Whoops. What if it were a barely-speaking, scarcely acknowledging a relationship. Would that count for completeness! If not, I have to think that I am sunk.

Can I forge a memory worth remembering with people I have tried my dead-level best to forget?