"How often should I forgive someone who wrongs me? Seven times?"
"No. Seventy times seven.
"That's 490 times in all. Impossible," I replied.
He smiled. My Friend.

I find it so difficult to forgive even the smallest offenses sometimes...but forgiving someone continually? 490 times?

Then the image flashed before me. That of the guy with the mop in his hands at the mall yesterday.We were standing at the food counter, with people milling around by the dozens, when I spotted this fellow with a mop wiping away every footprint they made. Each new time.Just as he finished wiping away one set, another dirty one would appear. He swished his cloth around deftly, one more time, till the stain disappeared. His expression remained the same. This would have gone on the entire day. Poor guy! How fed up he must be! But never a frown. He took it in his stride.

Then it struck me. Hey, this is what forgiveness does. Wiping our slate clean. Every time someone deliberately chooses to malign us, question our character, motives, our reputation....How do we react? Throw the muck back at him? Or just calmly go about wiping the slate. "He doesn't owe me anything," Can you say that? Right from your heart?For when we hold on to that grudge, however reasonable it may seem, it's finally we who end up more miserable, not him.So let's just let go, wipe away every grudge and fault...With no rancor or bitterness.

Just like the man with the mop.

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