“The future is programmed in the present. If we enter the present carrying thoughts of the past, we program the future to be just like the past. But when we enter the present without the past, we free the future to be unlike it.

Miracles occur in the present, interrupting the linear sequence of time. Forgiveness is what happens when we choose to see someone not as they were before this moment, but as who they are right now. Entering into the Holy Instant, free of our focus on what happened in the past, we free a relationship to begin again. I give you a break, increasing the probability that you’ll give me one too.

God sees only our innocence because that is how He created us, and therefore only that is true. In training our minds to see people as He does, we allow miracles to heal our relationships and free us from our suffering over them.

Only when we release someone from our condemnation of what they did do we free ourselves of the effects of what they did. By giving the gift of forgiveness, we receive the gift of forgiveness. It is not an act of “sacrifice, but an act of self-interest.

Entering the Holy Instant, consciously focusing on the spiritual innocence that is the truth of someone’s being now, in this moment, I re-mind that person of their innocence and thus re-mind myself of mine. In that one miraculous instant, the veil of illusion is removed and an entire universe of otherwise unmanifest possibilities flows forth.

The ego, of course, sees all of this as nonsense. Given that separation is its goal, it deems all efforts to forgive as offensive. It specializes in comments like, “But you should be angry!”; “You’ll just be a doormat if you forgive this”; and “I’m really worried about you; you seem to have no boundaries.”

But the ego is a liar. That which restores us to our right minds does not guide us incorrectly. The fact that I forgive you doesn’t mean that I’ve lost my mind. It doesn’t mean that I can’t say no. It doesn’t mean that I can’t set healthy boundaries or leave unhealthy situations. If anything, it means that I can do so more quickly and effectively.”

Excerpt From: Williamson, Marianne. “Tears to Triumph.”