Corrie Ten Boom in her excellent book "Tramp for the Lord" tells of a time when some close Christian friends hurt her. Forgiveness was hard; it took time. Finally, it happened and she was able to move on.

Many years later, she was now past eighty years old, a friend paid Corrie a visit. As the two of them sat in her tiny apartment in Holland, he asked about those people who years earlier had taken advantage of her.

"It is nothing," Corrie said, "It is all forgiven."

Then she continued, "They say there is nothing to forgive! They deny it every happened. No matter what they say, though, I can prove they were wrong."

I want to continue the story now using Corrie's own words: I went eagerly to my desk. "See, I have it in black and white! I saved all their letters and I can show you where...."

My friend slipped his arm through mine and gently closed the drawer. "Corrie! Aren't you the one whose sins are at the bottom of the sea? Yet are the sins of your friends etched in black and white?"

For an astonishing moment I could not find my voice. "Lord," I whispered at last, "who takes all my sins away, forgive me for preserving all these years the evidence against others! Give me grace to burn all the blacks and whites as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to your glory."

I did not go to sleep that night until I had gone through my desk and pulled out those letters--curling now with age--and fed them all into (the fire.)

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the ashes of those letters I was seeing yet another facet of His mercy...."

She went on to write, "Forgiveness is the key which unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness."
1 Corinthians 13:5 simply notes that love "keeps no record of wrongs suffered."

If you want to truly and completely forgive, drop the matter. Let it go !