01.04.T01-RS — Reflection Scorecard: Understanding the Costs of Unforgiveness

Purpose

This tool helps you reflect on the personal losses illustrated in the chapter and on the ways unforgiveness can punish the offended person long after the original wrongdoing.

Part A: Reflecting on the Costs

1. How did Apio effectively hand Sembatya the “remote control” to her happiness even while he continued enjoying his own life?

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2. What warning does Nuwa’s story provide about allowing bitterness and stress to remain unexamined while health deteriorates?

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3. How did Mugaya’s bitterness towards Nyayo interfere with his ability to move forward after his demotion?

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4. What did Samweli lose when alcohol became his way of coping with Sofia’s betrayal?

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5. How did Eliza’s repeated complaints about people gradually push friends and relatives away?

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6. What makes Nabakka’s decision to abandon the school particularly tragic in light of the vision she had built there?

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7. How did Bavawala’s determination to “show” Hawa turn an offence into foolish competition that eventually harmed him?

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8. Why did Yanita’s decision to retaliate against Mpewo through an affair create consequences that could not simply be reversed?

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9. What does Teberonda’s self-blame reveal about the need to forgive oneself as well as other people?

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Part B: Looking Across the Stories

10. What pattern do you see in the way the offended people sometimes suffered more than the offenders?

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11. Which cost in this chapter could most easily begin quietly before becoming serious?

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12. Which story most clearly shows the danger of making a permanent decision while reacting to temporary emotional pain?

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Part C: Personal Reflection

13. Which cost of unforgiveness would be most damaging to the life you are presently building?

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14. Have you already paid any emotional, relational, professional or personal cost because of an unresolved offence? What have you learnt from it?

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15. What does Birungi’s conclusion that she could not continue paying the price of not forgiving Lutalo challenge you to reconsider?

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