What does forgiveness look like?

If you're alive than you've been hurt by someone. The Bible says to forgive and normally forgiveness has come easily, almost naturally. After all everyone makes mistakes, right!?

BUT have you ever had to forgive someone who has hurt you more than you have ever hurt them.
ouch.

Suddenly forgiveness is no longer easy and it's far from natural. Honestly, I'd prefer to hold a grudge, give the cold shoulder, make the "sinner" feel guilty. I want to be bitter and stay angry. Ya know, tough love. Forgive and NEVER forget.

What do you do when you forgive and they continue on hurting you?
What about when they don't change like you thought they would?
What happens when there is nothing that can be said to make things better?
What about when they never even admit that they hurt you?

Do I still have to forgive!?

So what does forgiveness look like?

Can you forgive someone and choose to never talk to them again?
God didn't "forgive" me like that...
and aren't I supposed to strive to be like Him?
ouch.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11
Forgiveness for the Offender
5 If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

ouch.

I want to be like Christ, I want to be a breath of fresh air in a dying world, I want to be salt and light, but it's hard. But God's still working on me. He's been talking and I've been learning to forgive, completely and totally as best I know how. Because God has forgiven me, completely and totally in the most perfect way possible.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
The Ministry of Reconciliation
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Amen.