I recently started a new Facebook page to support my book, A Train Called Forgiveness.  It’s my first attempt at operating a fan page and another step in my book-promotion journey.

You can access the page at: http://www.facebook.com/authordanerickson.  The initial response to the page was good.  More than 30 “likes” in the first 24 hours.  That’s not bad for a book that only a handful of people have heard about.  Since that first day, things have slowed down.  From the A Train Called Forgiveness page, I post quotes about forgiveness, movie clips about forgiveness, and allow others to post their own feelings about forgiveness.  But let’s face it; forgiveness isn’t sexy.  It’s a hard sell.  Why should someone like a page about forgiveness when there are pages about money, sex, music, and dozens of silly wall posts?

1. Forgiveness is an essential part of faith. If we claim to be followers of Christ and we don’t forgive others, we better review our faith.  Without forgiveness none of us would be where we are today.  We’ve been forgiven and it’s essential that we forgive others as an expression of our faith.  Otherwise, we don’t practice what we preach, making ourselves hypocrites for the entire world to see.

2. Forgiveness can set you free.  Forgiving others, especially those who you’ve held a long-term grudge or resentment toward, will set you free.  Anger and hate are negative emotions.  They’ll eat you up inside if you hold onto them.  When you let go of your hate toward another, you free yourself of loads of old baggage.  You are the one who benefits most by forgiving others.

3. Forgiveness is a great source for therapeutic writing.  Write it down.  A great way to start the process of forgiving our enemies is to write about it.  It’s okay to start out writing about the hate you feel toward another.  It’s okay to be angry.  It’s part of the purging process.  As you continue to write with the intentional purpose of forgiving the other, you’ll begin to feel the power of forgiveness.  Your hate and anger will slowly turn into understanding and empathy.  Try it for yourself.

So forgiveness may not be sexy, (unless it’s a steamy make-up-sex scene in Hollywood), but it has the power to change your life and move you forward.  Contrary to a popular belief, to forgive does not always mean to forget.  But we’ll save that topic for another post.