My personal experience is that forgiveness and trust are essential to healthy relationships. As most folks will agree, small indiscretions (i.e. hurtful words, a forgotten date) in which trust isn't broken require forgiveness. The relationship can be salvaged when trust is merely bruised (i.e. broken promise), but when it has been broken, well, that falls into a whole different stratosphere. And when it has been broken and battered repeatedly, let's just say you may as well be in a different time warp! I still believe that trust can be earned back over time, but it just takes a whole lot more of it.
I'm certainly not limiting God's ability to forgive, because His grace is so far beyond our human capacity to comprehend and He even chooses to forget. But where does that leave us? Those of us that may have been "broken" and "battered"? That leaves us very "raw" and super sensitive to anything that looks untrustworthy. Remember though, God commands that we forgive, but I don't think there is anywhere in the Bible that says we must forget! Is that even possible? I know for me that it hasn't happened. I have forgiven, but only by the grace of God. Forgotten? No, that one alludes me.
Can we forget? I mean, really, are we capable? I haven't forgotten the many hurts from growing up with an alcoholic father (who has been sober since July of 1981), but I've forgiven him and have a wonderful relationship with him today. I had to forgive my mother for not protecting me from that environment, but I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten the people that were driving the vehicle that left me paralyzed, but I've forgiven them. And, like you, could name and number many people that have hurt me in the past that I can't forget about, but have been able to forgive. I can't take the credit for the capacity to forgive. It's just not in me, but greater is He Who is in me than he that is in the world. And through Him, I've been able to forgive. But forget?...That gets me to thinking about trust.
Just because I've forgiven someone, am I commanded to trust them? No, I don't think so. God says to trust Him, not those that hurt us. That doesn't mean that God can't restore the trust that was broken, but it only comes over time and with consistent behavior of the one that broke the bonds of trust in the relationship. I can say honestly, that I DO NOT trust many people. Maybe, it's my history, maybe it's a character flaw. I'm not quite sure, but I have peace with my Father and I believe He has given me the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth. So, I'll watch...and I'll wait...and I'll see who is trustWORTHY, for God said in Proverbs 3: 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
You know, though, the hardest person in life to forgive and trust sometimes is yourself.
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