FORGIVE and YOU WILL BE FORGIVEN.

Without forgiveness, there is no growth, and without growing, there is no learning, and without learning, we do not ever mature. One should not forgive everything. A balanced perspective on forgiveness would suit best, for not all things can be easily forgiven. One can forgive when the other is expressing true remorse for his deed as long as his deed does not surpass the reasonable boundaries of forgiveness. Forgiveness should stop when the deed (done with intention) constantly and permanently alters your trust in that person. Forgiveness shall not be granted to the one who commits murder, rape and other abominable deeds.Do you believe you could and should forgive someone for killing a family member? For rape? For wide-scale massacre? Just something to think about. I'd like to try and give you some thoughts, but it would be easier if I knew exactly what your thoughts were.

If you are encouraged to write in first person and make it really personal, maybe you could work in a story from your life where you forgave someone, or where someone forgave you, and how that affected things?
Forgiveness is needed to put the past into the past. To remove yourself from a frame of mind that holds you back. Only in forgiveness do you free yourself from the shackles of another person's wrong actions. To forgive, you must first accept your responsibility for provoking the other person, intended or not. However, the act was not totally yours, thus you must accept the person as they are and move on.
For some, it takes a great deal of intestinal fortitude to forgive. It can be painful work, and many give up and settle for a life of bitterness and physical aches and pains because they keep the memories and grudges bottled up inside them.

Sometimes it seems that if one lets go of the anger and the grudge, there will be nothing left of oneself, or that what happened will have been swept under the rug as if it never happened or didn't matter in the least. It did happen, and it does matter, but for how long can I hold my breath or clench my jaw?

Forgiving does not mean forgetting or condoning. Acceptance does not mean submission. It means looking at what is really there and admitting it. Awareness, acceptance, action. They are listed in that order for a reason.