Forgiveness

 Oh, forgiveness.  No sweeter gift, few more difficult commands.  

I struggled for several days, on where to begin in explaining (for lack of a better word) the foundations of my strength and fortitude.  And then it became clear that forgiveness was where I needed to start.  And then I tried to understand why here, why not with The Rock on which my feet are firmly planted, the faith I choose to walk in every day.  Why not love, or peace, or choosing joy?  It came to me last night, a rare night where sleep eluded me.  Forgiveness was the first lesson I learned when I had to find my feet again after my world was torn apart by betrayal and divorce.  

It was 27 years ago now.  My husband and I had two beautiful little boys and we had hit a "rough patch".  I thought we were finding our way through and was, in my head, beginning to make plans for a 10 year anniversary celebration.  And then I learned about the affair.  She was my friend, a girl I loved and mentored; our babysitter.  Everything I was not - younger, blonde, tall, slender, interested in his favourite hobbies.  Everything I had built my life around, all the things I thought I could rely on - love, loyalty, friendship, came crashing down around me.  I cried that night until I literally could not see.  

In the immediate aftermath he and I oddly got alone fairly well.  My mother kept telling me to get angry, afraid, I think, that I would just roll over and meekly accept what he would decide was my due.  Eventually we found a house for me to move in to, and once we were officially separated and I learned she had moved in with him on the very heels of my departure.  It was then that fury overtook me.  I was almost irrational; I relished every story from acquaintances who encountered the two of them telling me how awful they looked.  I could barely be civil.

I don't know how long it took until my anger exhausted me.  I began to realize that that was all I talked about - the wrongs done to me, with little acknowledgement of my own wrongdoing.  I felt very alone, and I had begun to define myself as divorced, as a rejected woman.  I adored my sons, but had become the weekend parent; he had day to day care and I didn't know who I was outside of wife and mother.  

I distinctly remember the day I was looking at myself in the mirror - and I did not like the girl staring back at me.  All I could see was hurt and bitterness, there was no joy or hope left.  I was blank and empty.  A few days later I sat down for coffee with my pastor and told him I knew I needed to forgive them to move forward but I didn't know how.  "How do I forgive?"  I asked.  I wanted a plan, steps to take, a checklist - something that made sense.  What he told me left me even more perplexed and frustrated, disappointed.  "Just put it on the back burner," he said.  Let it alone.  This was not the answer I wanted.  I wanted action.  But I tucked his words away and kept trying to rediscover me.  

Again, I don't know how long, but some time later I woke up from a strange dream, and I had that weird sensation you get when your ears are plugged and they finally "pop".  You don't realize your hearing has been muffled until it isn't any more.  And in that moment I realized I had somehow let all the hurt and bitterness go.

I'd like to tell you it was just that easy.  Truth is it was an ongoing thing.  Somewhere along the way we learned to work together as parents.  Our sons are grown and we have been able to visit amicably at graduations, weddings and funerals.  His marriage to her didn't last, and several years ago I received a letter from her apologizing, asking my forgiveness, admitting she finally realized what I had suffered.  And I was able to honestly reply that I had forgiven her years before and had found my own level ground.  I've learned, slowly, to acknowledge my hurts, put them aside and forgive - and it (usually) has gotten easier.

Forgiveness is no easy thing.  People will hurt us, almost always those closest to us, the ones we have entrusted with our most vulnerable selves.   Sometimes we can just walk away from the person who hurt us, close the door, end the relationship - but without forgiving the wrong the wound will fester and poison your heart as surely as arsenic.  We hear it said "forgive and forget", and perhaps that's where so many of us struggle with forgiving.  Somehow we got the notion that forgiving someone is saying what they did to us was okay.  But the truth is the opposite.  The wrong that was done remains wrong, and we should be mindful of it as we rebuild boundaries.  Perhaps that person needs to be held at arm's length now, no longer allowed the same intimacies, perhaps they need to be fenced off completely.  Forgiveness sets us free to move forward, no longer shackled to past wrongs.

We cannot hold on to hurt waiting for apologies or acknowledgement.  Like the jerk who cuts you off on the highway, leaving you cursing and gesticulating in anger or fear, he has no idea of your distress, he is blithely motoring along.  You alone are upset, and your raging is affecting your passengers-those who did you no wrong.  I am not saying we should not feel hurt or angry, or that we are not justified in wanting to be avenged.  But we cannot live there, it will soon become a prison of our own making and will colour our responses to other relationships - it may in fact cause us to misread benign comments an actions as negative.  

I'm no expert.  I have no degrees or accreditations.  But I have lived this.  And the story I shared was not an isolated event.  I wish I could say I never got hurt again.  But there were other loves, other friends, people I trusted, respected, relied on, who let me down, betrayed me, rejected me.  And some I am still learning to forgive.  I think I've moved on and some memory brings it all rushing back.

You may ask what you can do to aid the process.  I can only tell you what has worked for me.  I write letters.  I don't send them.  But I pour out all my anger and hurt feelings, outline all the wrongdoing I feel has been leveled at me.  I weep and rage and shake my fist at Heaven (He can take it, I promise).  I have letters stashed away, and some I have burned.  Others I have folded carefully and marked with a cross, telling myself to leave the hurt there, at the foot of the cross.  My oldest and dearest friend tells me she adds another step to this - she then writes the reply she needs to hear, the apology, the regret, the acknowledgement of the grief. 

I suppose you might by now be asking what forgiveness, learning to forgive, being (relatively) quick to forgive, has to do with internal fortitude, with my ability to recuperate so quickly after the trauma of this past summer and to live without the trauma everyone wants to assume I must carry.  There are two important facts here.  One, the woman who attacked me doesn't matter enough for me to carry her in my heart.  She didn't target me, I was just the means to an end, and end she didn't get.  Secondly, forgiving negates the power your assailant has over you.  I'm sure you've heard it said that holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent free in your head.  Letting that go, forgiving the wrong evicts them and keeps them from taking up precious space in your heart.  Eventually  when you trip across that person, whether in conversation or in real life, you will find they just don't matter.  Your heart won't clench in your chest, your blood won't run cold (or hot, depends on whether the wound caused anger or fear).  Maybe laughing about it might be a stretch for now, but you can take the lesson and move forward. 

Forgiveness is far from easy.  I apologize if I seem blithe, if you feel like I don't understand your particular circumstance.  And often them first person we need to forgive is ourselves. And that, I think, will be my next post.