💐The Garden of Forgiveness💐

[JamiPozcord]

There are things that hurt us, words that keep spinning around in our heads, and people who, knowingly or unknowingly, leave wounds where trust once lived. Sometimes we wait for an apology, a gesture, an explanation that never comes. And while we wait, we run the risk of turning our hearts into places where nothing but bitterness grows.

That is why, over time, I have learned to imagine the heart as a garden. A garden where not everything that enters deserves to stay, where some things must wither so that others can bloom.

I want to build a garden of forgiveness.

A place where I can leave behind what hurt me without having to carry it for the rest of my life. Where every act of forgiveness becomes a seed that allows me to move forward, not because what happened was right, but because my peace is worth more than living tied to what someone did to me.

Forgiving does not mean forgetting, justifying, or opening the door again to someone who hurt us. Sometimes, forgiveness also means walking away, remaining silent, and continuing on our path without wishing anyone harm. It means understanding that we can let go of resentment without giving our trust away again.

Above all, it means refusing to let other people's actions decide who we are going to become.

If someone treats me with indifference, I don't want to learn to be indifferent. If someone responds to me with pride, I don't want their pride to turn me into a proud person. If someone closes a door on me, I don't want to start closing all my doors. Because it would be sad if, after so much hurt, we ended up resembling the very things that once made us suffer.

If they don't give to me, I still want to give. If I don't receive affection, I still want to keep my own. If I don't find kindness everywhere, I still want to carry mine with me.

Not because everyone always deserves it, but because I don't want to lose who I am trying to understand why others stopped being who I expected them to be.

Of course, there will be days when it feels difficult. Days when exhaustion makes us think that being good is pointless, that forgiveness is for the naive, and that the best thing to do would be to harden our hearts. But a hardened heart also stops feeling the beautiful things. I don't want a few bad experiences to steal my ability to love, to trust again, to lend a hand, or to feel genuine happiness for someone else.

Every act of forgiveness matters. Some will be small; others will cost us entire nights of sleep. There will be forgiveness we can speak aloud and other forgiveness we must work through in silence, little by little, until the memory no longer hurts the way it once did. Not all forgiveness will come at the same time, but each act can teach us something about ourselves.

If someone hurts us again, we also have the right to set boundaries. The garden is not about allowing anyone to pull out our flowers. It is about learning what we let in, what we need to protect, and what we must allow to wither without continuing to water it with our thoughts.

In the end, life will not always give us back what we give. Not everyone will appreciate our help, not everyone will recognize our affection, and not everyone will know how to care for what we offer them. But that doesn't have to turn us into calculating people who cannot give without expecting something in return.

May the lack of love from others never teach us to live without love. May a lack of respect never take away our respect. May disappointment never convince us that no one deserves anything good from us anymore.

Because we can still choose.

Choose not to plant resentment where there was pain. Choose not to feed with our attention those who bring us nothing but sadness. Choose to walk away without hatred, to forgive without returning, and to keep giving without abandoning ourselves.

I want my heart to be a garden, not a cemetery of wounds.A place with room for memories, but also for new opportunities; for goodbyes, but also for encounters; for the forgiveness I still struggle with and for all the beautif
ul things I have yet to discover.