Thursday, June 8, 2023

Why choose forgiveness rather than bitterness?

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Light Between Oceans

Against a backdrop of beautiful and wild scenery, it deals with deep issues about trauma, parenthood, infertility, honesty, justice, and forgiveness.


One of the most powerful and central dialogues of the film is a dialogue between a wife and her husband, Frank. The version below is taken directly from the novel on which the movie is based.

 “But how? How can you just get over these things, darling?...You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'

'I choose to...I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'

'But it's not that easy.'

He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things...I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.”

― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

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