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Thoughts for a Woman's Heart |
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encouragement in things that matter |
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The Journey of Forgiveness
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The silence of the walls around her was crushing. She wandered aimlessly through the rooms she had called "home" for so many years. Pictures, mementoes, the worn, but comfortable places – all brought blurred and stinging memories of a once vibrant love. What had happened? It seemed the harder she had tried, the more he had pulled away. Her feelings were trampled; her hopes, scorned, and now, as she let her tears eclipse the scene before her, the reality tore at her soul – he was gone. Fictional story? Not really. The stabbing, haunting, oppressive pain of a marriage gone awry is a familiar story to many. Others have replayed the damaging tapes of abandonment, abuse, misunderstanding, character assault, neglect, or rejection, over and over again. We’ve been overlooked, left behind, ridiculed, and assaulted. Some have faced the horrors we all fear – a drunken driver, a random shooting, a sexual pervert. And from a far distant hill outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, three lonely crosses are etched on the horizon, and a Voice echoes through the ages, "Forgive ... just as I have forgiven you."
The offense has happened. The first step in your journey is to acknowledge the offense and its consequences within a context of truth. Ignoring or denying an offense that has significantly impacted my life does not allow me to deal appropriately with its consequences. I can only forgive when I know what I am forgiving; therefore, I need to honestly and objectively face the offense and face its consequences. The second step in your journey is to understand forgiveness itself. A basic definition of forgiveness states, "Forgiveness is the setting aside of anger or punitive or vindictive feelings toward someone who has wronged me." If forgiveness though is a journey, it is a process that takes time, and how much time may be dependent on the wrong that was committed. It is not "natural" – it is seldom our first response. Forgiveness never condones a wrong. What is wrong will always be wrong. Neither does forgiveness equate with forgetting. I may never forget, although forgiveness does over time, soften memories. It does not give an offender license to commit the same offense again and again. Forgiveness is for the past. Offenses in the present need to be appropriately addressed. From my own perspective as the one who has been wronged, forgiveness is not a manipulation tool for my offender to acknowledge his wrong or to change his behavior. Neither may happen.
You are already taking the third step in your journey when you make a decision to forgive while at the same time you are seeking to resolve, or accept, consequences. God offers His grace. I need to realize human effort is not only futile to "fix" an offense, but it can also be futile in attempting to "fix" its consequences. I will need His grace to meet me in the needs imposed by consequences. We’re not done yet. Remember that forgiveness is a journey, and although we make a decision to forgive, we must enter into working through the process of forgiveness while continuing to extend forgiveness. That’s the fourth step in the journey and it may be a long one. The process of forgiveness continues as old emotions resurface, as memories can suddenly descend, or as the reality of consequences are lived out, and we extend forgiveness again and again and even, again.
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— Bev |
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