‘I will not judge who is worthy of forgiveness (since I also need forgiveness), but will leave that final judgment to God……it is as close as I can come to forgiveness of predators and sociopaths at this point in my Christian development.’
It is not an essential condition of your salvation, I don't think, to have to forgive predators and sociopaths, except, of course, for any that have committed aggression against you personally.
If you do have predators and sociopaths in your life that you have not forgiven, then I would ask, who is there, who is being unforgiving? Is it you, really, or is it the image of your injury that you call yourself?
In my life, a great injury has been done, life-changing if not life-threatening. The person who injured me is alive and well and thinks that no wrong was committed, thinks that God is pleased.
How can I forgive that? How can I live with that? How can I see that person standing a few feet away from me in church? How can I speak to that person, if I am addressed? How can I live day to day without resentment?
The Lord is good. He purifies us of ourselves when He sees we cannot cleanse ourselves, which is most of the time. He renews us. He makes us into different people. Though we may live in the same house, wear the same clothes, go to the same church, or work, He has changed the inner man. It is a different heart inside, a renewed mind.
If it weren't for that, to live next to such injustice, such triumphant denial of one's being by another person who thinks they are doing you a favor by destroying you, would be impossible. It would certainly lead one to suicide. It would have led me to that door.
But no. God is good. He is always there, patient and receptive of our tears. He dries those tears and puts us to sleep, so He can allay our loneliness, and when we awake, if not a helpmate in the flesh taken from our side, then what is better.
‘For me the reward of virtue is to see Your face,
and, on waking, to gaze my fill on Your likeness.’
Psalm 17
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