Forgiveness.
It sounds so simple — and yet, when it comes down to it, few things stretch our hearts quite like this one. Forgiveness is the act of canceling a debt that was owed to us. It’s choosing to release someone from what they “owe,” allowing the cost to fall on us.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It doesn’t minimize or erase the hurt. It simply means we’ve decided to stop carrying it. We release our grip on the offense, not to excuse the other person, but to reclaim our own peace.
Unforgiveness hooks you into the hurt and the person who hurt you.
Forgiveness unhooks you.
When you don’t lean into the work of forgiving someone for how they have hurt a precious piece of your heart, the other person still owns a part of your life.
Do the people you’re frustrated with ever fill up your thoughts, living like constant, annoying static in your brain? They show up in your dreams, your moods, your reactions to people or situations. They can even shape what you avoid. Have you ever skipped an event just because that person would be there? Unforgiveness gives these people far too much power in our lives. Which really sucks, because living your life to its fullest capacity is why you are here. Living in your imago Dei, letting your light shine, doing that thing you do better than anyone else — that’s what makes the world a more beautiful place. Staying hooked into the other person with resentment distracts you from that goodness.
Forgiveness is the way we get back into the driver’s seat. It’s how we stop letting the person who hurt us steer our life from the back seat of our memories.
Forgiveness doesn’t say, “No worries. It’s fine.” It says, “This person hurt me. And they don’t owe me anymore.” Sometimes it’s in conversation with that person. And depending on the situation, sometimes the process of forgiveness doesn’t engage that person. Either way, it unhooks you from resentment so you can move forward lighter, freer, and whole again.
This month’s group topic was forgiveness — I was tempted to skip it, because it is a weighty topic. It is profoundly complicated, deeply theological, its impact woven through history and current politics. Forgiveness — or unforgiveness — has even intertwined its wily self through my own life in both big and small ways.
Although complicated indeed, it is also surprisingly simple. And it is such a necessary, life-freeing practice — one we can learn and grow in like any other skill. When we begin by untangling the resentment of the smaller things, we build the muscle to handle the bigger hurts that come along.
In both of my groups, each member walked through a series of steps to be free from being hooked into the person who hurt them. We did this in the context of relationship, because healing from hurt and walking through forgiveness works best with a witness — someone who can climb into the well with you, offering comfort and understanding about the hurt you have experienced. Speaking words of forgiveness aloud in that kind of structured and safe space changes the wiring in the brain and frees hearts. It releases resentments. It opens the possibility to wish the other person well and to rest in knowing that God sees you, and God’s got it from here. But mostly, it frees us. We are the ones who become unhooked.
Some of the books I read on this topic are:
When Bad Things Happen to Good People – Kushner (a grand wrestling with this topic from a good man who had a lot of hard happen)
The Art of Forgiving or Forgive & Forget – Smedes (both of his books have practical steps and real stories of forgiveness)
It’s Not My Fault – Cloud & Townsend (what to do after a betrayal. we don’t forgive and truly forget. we do need to remember for the sake of protecting ourselves. this book helps navigate complicated situations)
Forgive – Timothy Keller (an in depth theological & historical view – he talks about how the concept of forgiveness originated in Christianity and it is the only solution)
Here are a few reflection questions for you till next time….
Is there someone who’s still “driving” your inner world a little bit?
What might begin to be freed up in you if you slowly, gently, began to forgive?
~Tina