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<\/a><\/p>\nThere is a cost to pursuing peace.<\/p>\n
When we go out of our way to be peaceful we find that we have to give up parts of ourselves in order fully pursue peace.\u00a0 This can mean that we have to tear out our own desire for revenge when we have been wronged, or it could mean we commit our own resources to help correct a situation for someone else.\u00a0 If you have been robbed, bringing peace into the situation could mean facing the person who has stolen from you, and offering them forgiveness.\u00a0 Or perhaps someone has been stolen from, and while you can not bring the thief to justice, you have it in your power to restore what was stolen by sacrificing something of your own.<\/p>\n
In small things, people do this often, and the world does not take much note of them.\u00a0 We accept family members who have hurt us back into our lives, even though it would be easier to stay mad at them.\u00a0 Sometimes the person who has hurt us doesn\u2019t even know that we have been hurt, but we release those feelings to accept them back.\u00a0 We accept the pain, and accept the possibility of more pain to welcome them back into relationship with us.<\/p>\n
(I want to be clear that I am not encouraging us to stay in a situation that repeatedly results in physical or emotional harm.\u00a0 There is a difference between relational pain and abusive pain.\u00a0 While both may continue or reoccur over long periods of time, they are different and should be treated as such. The true intent of the person causing the pain should be considered.)<\/em><\/p>\n In larger things, we as people are less likely to extend the hand of peace when we have been wronged.\u00a0 There are not many of us who can imagine a suicide bomber being forgiven by the living victims of his crime.\u00a0 It is almost as if we see certain acts as outside of the realm of forgiveness because of their brutality.\u00a0 We see some offenses as being unforgiveable.\u00a0 Perhaps your whole family was unjustly imprisoned and died in captivity.\u00a0 Many of us would consider that unforgivable and would demand justice for those who carried out the act.<\/p>\n Unfortunately we have examples of people who have lived through this exact situation.\u00a0 Corrie Ten Boom was part of a Dutch family who had hidden Jews fleeing from persecution and imprisonment in Germany.\u00a0 Her family was caught, and imprisoned for their \u201ccrime\u201d.\u00a0 Corrie and her sister Betsy were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where Betsy died.\u00a0 Corrie was released (because of a clerical error apparently) and returned to Holland to start a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors.\u00a0 While giving a speech in Germany 2 years after the end of the war, Corrie was approached by one of her former guards who asked her for forgiveness.\u00a0 After a brief internal battle, Corrie decided that she must forgive him for his crimes.\u00a0 You can read the whole story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We do not like to accept that in order to pursue peace, we have to make sacrifices of our own.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to share the following video with you.\u00a0 It is an audio recording from a radio show called \u201cThis American Life\u201d and in its brief 4 minutes it makes clear the extents to which pursuing peace can take us.<\/p>\n