Human beings created in the image of God need to be held accountable. If a shark bites you while you are swimming off the California coast, you would never talk about forgiving the shark, much less of trying to find ways to communicate why what he did hurt you. He's just a shark! He thought you were a seal. That's that.

But it's very different when a person acts like a shark and takes a bite out of your soul. Here is someone who must be dealt with as a responsible moral agent. Here's someone who needs to know the damage she did, including if that means your saying, "I can't forgive you right now. I am that hurt. I've got to recover before I will have a chance to rally the resources I'll need to forgive you." If someone is mangled in a car accident, the first priority is to get the physical wounds healed. If there are mental wounds like post-traumatic stress syndrome or the like, then they need to be healed with therapy eventually.

But even if you are a therapist who passes by the accident, you'd be a fool to kneel down next to the wrecked car and say, "Let's talk about this accident so you can deal with it in a healthy psychological way." Of course not! Even a therapist would need to grab a hankie and staunch the flow of blood first. Get to the other stuff later. So also with great spiritual wounds: the immediate injuries need to be tended to first. Then, sometime later, you may be in a position to move on toward forgiving the one who inflicted the wounds.

And, of course, there are any number of phenomena that can make forgiveness a long, tortured process. It is exceedingly hard to forgive people who refuse to admit they were wrong. It is very difficult to proffer forgiveness to people who slap the gift of grace out of your hand saying, "Keep your forgiveness! I don't want it!" It is difficult to forgive the person who won't speak with you, refuses to look at you or meet with you.