I think forgiveness means forgiving even though no one has made amends. If people make all the proper amends, then forgiveness isn't necessary, right? If the forgiveness has strings attached, then I agree it won't really work (and it isn't really forgiveness).
One benefit of forgiveness, which I am working on with my parents, is that it allows you to acknowledge your own humanness and need for forgiveness. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I don't mean that it equates the victim with the perpetrator, but for ME (not speaking for anyone else!) I do better not casting myself as only a victim. It helps me if I realize that I have victimized people, too, out of recklessness or ignorance or immaturity, and I am thankful to think that they might forgive me. If I can give that gift, too, then so much the better. I think it's important to do this while maintaining that what the person did (what people did to me, what I did to people) was bad-- it isn't an excusing of the behavior, just an acknowledgment of human fallibility and the necessity of not holding onto the transgression forever. Almost everything (at least everything not super-horrible) is understandable in the context of the human condition-- parents were badly parented themselves, abusers were abused themselves and/or were born broken, etc. At least for me that understandability helps me let go a little bit and see things in a broader way-- helps me move beyond a place of anger and helplessness.
I am not sure where forgiveness fits in for super-egregious crimes-- I know that there are people who forgive murderers and rapists and such and I am not sure I could do that. It is harder for me to imagine the payoff from that-- how my mind and heart would talk myself into it. But I don't think that when they forgive those people that they in any way excuse what the abuser did or expect some sort of payoff for the forgiveness.
Please do tell me you didn't tell your friend she needs a new zip code?
