By 9jaeye 
LOVE and FORGIVENESS are synonymous there is no one without the other.. You can’t Love truly if you don’t have the spirit of FORGIVENESS and you can’t forgive genuinely if you don’t have LOVE in you..
Just like Love, FORGIVENESS is NOT a FEELING, it is a DECISION. It is the DECISION to offer GRACE rather than demand JUSTICE.
Forgiveness removes the barrier created by the offense and lift the penalty, thus opening the door for possible growth in the relationship.
FORGIVENESS and SACRIFICE are the driving force of LOVE.
The Greek and Hebrew word for forgiveness when translated to English means “TO PARDON or TO TAKE AWAY.”
If you can cultivate the habit of sincerely apologizing whenever you hurt or wrong someone, and possess the spirit of genuine forgiveness, you would have succeeded in acquiring two essential ingredients that will garnishly spice up your relationship and you have already developed two fundamental elements that will help you build a healthy relationship that will help you in marriage.
Forgiveness does not remove hurt nor does it automatically restore loving feelings, but it is the first step in processing hurt and restoring love.
There can never be a healthy relationship or marriage if the persons involved do not cultivate the habit of SINCERE APOLOGY (You must make it a habit to apologize when you wrong your partner) and the spirit of GENUINE FORGIVENESS (You have to possess a true forgiving spirit because there will always be hurt and wrongs in every relationship).
When you wrong someone and you go to apologize to them, the first thing they look out for is “SINCERITY.” They want to be convinced that you are sincerely sorry because, with that convincing instinct, forgiveness becomes easy.
Just like love, apology has languages… According to Gary Chapman, there are about 5 apology languages.
Until you understand the apology language of someone (your partner) and speak it correctly, your apology will never appear sincere to them and you will likely not get a genuine forgiveness.
The ability to understand your partner’s APOLOGY LANGUAGE and express it correctly is the key to genuine forgiveness.
What then are the apology languages and how do you speak them correctly? I will be talking on this in my next article.
APOLOGY is a sign of BRAVERY while FORGIVENESS is a sign of STRENGTH…
Anyone who doesn’t admit whenever they are wrong and as such doesn’t apologize, simply means they don’t really value the relationship or friendship enough.
To “Apologize” means I value this relationship/friendship and I am ready to make amends and help it grow, while the refusal to “Apologize” when you hurt or wrong someone is a sign that you careless about the relationship/friendship and you are not willing to build it and make it grow..
There are certain things that forgiveness does not and will not do no matter how much a person tends to have forgiven you or how sincere your apology is… (Gary Chapman)
*It does not damage our memory (You can forgive and not forget)
*It does not erase the negative impact that the hurt has created
*It does not automatically bring back love
*Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation.
You can forgive and not forget a hurt or wrong done to you. This is because, the human mind is divided into two compartment “The CONSCIOUS and SUBCONSCIOUS”
The conscious are the reality, the things that are happening in the moment, for instance, i am conscious of the fact that I am typing this message.
The subconscious are memories stored in our mental database, they are hidden files.. These hidden memories can come into the conscious when retrieved or under certain condition.. For instance if you ask me what I ate last night, I will have to go back to my memory to retrieve the information and bring it to the conscious…