Forgiving Injustice

When we talk about forgiveness, we tend to use words like grace, patience, mercy, and love to describe what forgiveness is. Justice is different. When we talk about justice, we use words like penalty, fairness, equality, and discipline to describe what justice is. As a result, we think that we cannot forgive this or that person because the just thing to do is hold them accountable. Or we think we cannot hold them accountable because we must forgive them. We pit forgiveness and justice against one another because we think that we can only choose one. However, forgiveness shows mercy because mercy allows for reconciliation and forgiveness does justice because justice leads to transformation.