As a kid, did I ever have a need to forgive anyone? Kids have resilience in the "you hurt me" department. When we, as children, experienced someone omitting us from an invitation list or saying something hurtful or ignoring us, most of us picked up and moved on to other fish in the sea of friends. Or we chose to hang in there, face the rejection and pain when our self-esteem took a hit, and stick with the perpetrator of the hurt. I don't believe we ever really consider forgiveness in our limited experience of life as children.
We enter adult life to a different phase of relationships and to greater responsibility. Most adult relationships build on themselves and provide stability while the rigors of life put us through the paces. We learn to really depend on friends and family when the weight of the world falls on our shoulders. Real-life responsibility brings that need for support from some network or another, the need to connect in meaningful ways with other humans.
Enter the need for forgiveness. Life happens, calendar dates fly by and we forget, we don't bother, we feel too tired or we just don't. A friend or sibling utters a thoughtless comment or makes a joke about something that doesn't feel funny and we hurt. All of us need to forgive these socially-driven let-downs. We don't even have to confront anyone, we usually can drop it and continue forward.
Easy hurts feel easy to forgive. Dealing with repeat offenders makes forgiveness more of an effort, still, surface hurts slip past us in a swifter-flowing stream without pulling us under. No struggle usually occurs. Life goes on as usual.
The "Hard to Forgive" experiences cause us to trip and leave us sprawled on the floor, face-down, not wanting to get up to handle the situation. Pushes, shoves, traps, evil against us, hateful words and deeds -- these require hard forgiveness involving the deep-meaning pieces of our lives, such as marriage relationships, relatives, long-held friendships, careers, crime and money.
When someone hurts us in one of these core areas of our lives -- the parts that stretch deep and long, that cover the most space in our hearts, minds and souls and will cause us to struggle if we lose our strength and focus -- we often harbor the hurt. We humans tend to our wounds, care for them and nurse them. The wounds need to heal, but when it comes to feelings, caring so tenderly nurtures the hurt. Tending means focusing. Focusing means looking intently at the painful instance and reviewing it often. Heal? Think about it ... HOW?
Flesh wounds require careful handling and focused care because our bodies heal naturally when we protect them from the elements (this is a God-provided function), or may have help by medical means (also God-provided). The emotional, spiritual and mental hurts need a firmer grip and a Greater Guide whom we often forget to seek first. Those hurts must endure the elements, for if we shelter them, we'll never leave our homes or our rooms or our beds. We need command and a plan to guide the healing in the right direction, not just wait for nature to take its course. Human nature will fail to heal properly and safely. Human nature will take the easy route. Human nature will not forgive. Human nature will feed its need to react and retaliate.
When we have a deep hurt (abuse, betrayal, slander, unjust death, robbery, mismanagement of funds, broken vows, lies) nothing feels better than to coddle ourselves, to appeal for sympathy. Even better, find empathy. Find a buddy who suffers the same way and commiserate.
While you drown, look for another struggling swimmer?
As you face financial ruin, go to someone filing for bankruptcy?
While your marriage faces failure, look for someone else in a troubled marriage?
When you've suffered wrong at a person's hands, lean on someone else who suffers the same way?
Of course not! Yet, we people do this. We do not know how to heal. We do know how to pity ourselves and to drum up supporters and continue marching while carrying a banner announcing our suffering.
When we choose silly, misguided solutions like those above -- and we do choose them -- we gain momentum with the hurt, find more turmoil and less peace. We relive the pain and it compounds. When we replay the embarrassing situation or the heart-breaking betrayal, we give pride the edge and pride wants vindication at the very least. Pride provides a constantly reopened wound. At every memory or trigger of the hurt, the wound grows more painful and greater in size as it begins to consume the mind, heart and soul of the bearer.
On the other hand, who wants to pick up and work to move on as if the hurt didn't happen? Who can do that? Impossible you say. I'm not forgiving that person. Ever. She doesn't deserve it. He hurt me so badly I can never get past it. I can't forgive. I can't. I won't.
God can. When we ask forgiveness of God, he gives it. We don't deserve it, yet He wipes the slate clean and does not revisit our wrong-doing. He gets past it. He lets us start again. He does not look at us with a grim expression and knowing nod, waiting for the sequel. Through Jesus Christ, God opened a very easy path to forgiveness, directly to Him -- no priestly intervention necessary, no saints can pave the way. We ask for forgiveness, and he gives it. Humans can give it, too, with God's help. We take a lot longer to figure it out and to mean it because we fall so short of God's glory, but we can do it when we try. Our human self will continue to flounder in its own devices, but by taking a faith-directed path, we will forgive and we will have healing.
The only way to heal is to forgive. The way to forgive is to pray and ask God to forgive our harboring of the hurt, and mishandling of the aftermath. We need to ask for his guidance, for direction through the difficulty, and we need to tell him that we forgive what feels like an unforgivable thing and we need to tell him we forgive the person who sits in the penalty box in our minds, in a permanent time-out if we're left to our own devices.
We won't find the ability to move on if we keep the hurt visible and reviewable and unforgiven. If you smash your toe into an anvil in the middle of the floor, give it a dirty look, and step over it, the anvil will remain on the floor for you to stumble over again. Even when the brain remembers to dodge it or leap over it, the anvil will remain in sight. You will never stop seeing it every day when you pass that place. You will begin to describe it to confidants like a fish story, bigger than reality, embellished to improve your stature in the story and to degrade and demean that anvil at all costs. The anvil doesn't stand a chance when described in the colors you choose to paint it. And more than likely, you are wrong about the anvil in many ways, but you see only its hurtful ways and negative attributes. You remember pain.
The truth us, you have to remove it from standing in the middle of the path. God has ways of doing this for us, through our prayer and study of the Bible. God may place another person in our path -- someone who has conquered the same demon but has cast it aside. Someone who has faith and ability to see your situation in reality and will offer truth and light for the right outcome, not the convenient one. Someone who will not join you in your misery or link with you inappropriately and become your daily guide. Someone who will not tempt you to cause further damage or to engage in wrong behaviors.
Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. – Ephesians 4:32
Forgiving makes the difference. Asking it of God for our part (holding on to hurt, or being part of the hurt in some way, such as in friendship/family/marital/money/moral struggles), and offering it to the person(s) who caused such pain. This time, practice helps. We may not feel forgiveness in our hearts for whomever hurt us, we need to practice it, and sometimes practice it daily. God will direct our hearts to the right place if we let Him in to do it. While we dig in our heels and try to avoid the pain of facing and letting go of the hurt, God will work through us to find new roads around the painful spots. When we ask, he will redirect. When we come to Him in sadness, he will filter in joy. We have to believe and to continue focusing on Him, and he will meet us full-on right where we need it.
Comforting our hurting self feels good, and removing the hurt feels like we have betrayed ourselves, at first. Offering forgiveness to someone who has done something unspeakable, unbelievable, seemingly impossible by our own standards, seems impossible to do. However, when we let God intervene in our thoughts, He softens our hearts, too. We can begin to see the person who hurt us through God's eyes, and we have to keep looking at the person in that way, because our human heart, out of practice in giving grace and forgiveness, will want to curl up and shelter itself. Keep at it. Don't quit! When you fall off the path (and you will), get back on it and ask forgiveness again, for the giving up.
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. – Colossians 3:13
One day, you will wonder where the painful feelings went, and you will feel surprised at how little help your mind needs to stay away from those hurtful times. You may find you offer that forgiveness daily, or that you do so only here and there because the wounds don't ache anymore.
With God's strength and grace, his guidance and powerful love, you will feel the transforming power of forgiveness.
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. – Luke 6:37
P.S. Are there secrets to forgiving? My only "secret" is to pray for the enemy, the one whom I need to forgive. I pray for God to draw the person near, to give grace and mercy, and to fill the person's life with joy -- and let it be crystal clear that God is the giver of it.
Listen/watch the video below for a forgiveness lift. The best line? "The prisoner that it really frees is YOU." True.
"Forgiveness" by Matthew West
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