How do you Forgive the Deepest Hurts?

     How do you forgive the deepest hurt committed against you? By choosing to love the person who committed it. By choosing to see the person as someone with their own hurts, their own history, and saying, "I understand why you are doing what you are doing, and I cannot say that, in your shoes, I wouldn't have chosen the same path." Love, the word actually used in the Greek text, has little to do with romantic attachment or familial affection, and everything to do with choosing to have compassion for the other person.

     How do you forgive a murderer, a rapist, a person who has become a monster? You look deeply into that person and recognize that they were not always so. You look at the experiences of the child they were, the neurological considerations of their biology, the education and what they know or knew at the time; you look at everything and really ask yourself, would I have done any differently were I them?
We always want to say, "Yes, of course I would have done differently." Ah, but you are a different person, with a different past history, a different brain chemistry, a different set of learning experiences from them. Of course you would have done differently, you were never that person.
     The only path through the bitterness, the anger, and the hurt which we feel is by choosing to love the other person. By setting that person as the object of our compassion. Fear is always the root of things like anger, frustration, hurt, and bitterness. But Love tosses fear outside, always, and because it tosses fear outside, things like anger, bitterness, and hatred are tossed with it. These cannot exist where there is no fear, and thus they cannot exist where love and compassion are present.
     Loving the other person isn't always about the other person, but it is always about ourselves. Loving the other person may change the other person, but it will change ourselves. The other person may or may not understand, or even have knowledge of this love. That is not always the point. They may be so twisted within themselves, and thus dangerous to themselves and others, that it may not matter whether they recognize it or not. Again, that is not the point. Loving the other person is about overcoming your own fear, your own anger, and your own hatred. If it overpowers theirs as well, so much the better.
Love always lets go. Fear always clings. Fear always holds on to wrongs, love always releases them into the void. It is because of fear we become either attached or averse; fear of loss of something we perceive as beneficial, or fear of gain of something we perceive as harmful. But attachment, either positive or negative, is always driven by fear.
     God loves and is love, but He holds no attachments. What need is there for Him to be attached to anything? All things depend on Him for their existence. Nothing is ever lost to Him, but is merely transformed.
     How do you overcome the fear, anger, and hatred from the most grievous of offenses? How do you forgive the one who has caused you the greatest suffering? By choosing to love them, and letting the fear go because of that love.