Sometimes it is hard to believe 17 years have passed since my life was flipped upside down, not for the first time, certainly not for the last. And then something happens to bring everything hurtling back. When that happens I am usually surprised at how little I care anymore, and even more stunned by how up in arms the people who love me still are about it......
Let me backtrack a little. At 18 I married my high school sweetheart. Nine years later we had 2 beautiful children, but life was not all wine & roses. I was unhappy, bored, even restless, I felt isolated & alone, neglected. I thought we could weather this, that when the kids were older (they were 3 & 1) things would be better. In all honesty I thought seriously about leaving. But I believe in marriage, my vows meant something. And part of me still loved him, or wanted to.
Then one spring afternoon my husband of almost 10 years sat across from me at our kitchen table & told me he was in love with our 18 year old babysitter. To say I was devastated barely covers it. Surprised? Not really, I had had my suspicions, but since I could never do that to someone I cared about I could not imagine anyone I cared about betraying me. I wept until I could barely see. I raged. And then I resumed a stoic stance. I shut down my emotions to survive.
Later, nearing & in the midst of, the custody hearing I started to breakdown. I was angry, raw, hurting. The court gave him & his young wife the day-to-day "care & control" of our sons. I was shattered. I felt a little like a part of me had died.
The years went by. I had managed to reconcile myself, mostly, to what had happened, but my anger was becoming bitterness. I remember looking into my eyes in the bathroom mirror one day. I wanted to see if the hate, the anger, the bitterness, was visible. I did not like the woman looking back at me. I felt stuck. I wanted, desperately, to move forward. To do that I had to figure out how to forgive them, both my former husband & my former friend.
I cannot say it was easy. I cannot say I just decided to forgive them & move on. I cannot even say I don't sometimes need to forgive them again. But I know I did forgive them. I can be in a room with them, have a pleasant if benign conversation, I don't get tied up in knots when I hear about them. They are now relegated to the group of "people I know". In no way can I say have forgotten. I know what they did (I also know what I did & did not do) I know what they said (and what I said in turn). The pain the caused still visits me from time to time, but mostly the memory of it is the remembrance of something that happened to someone else.
In the meantime I met someone else, had another child, and ended that relationship (another story for another day). Today, 17 years later, I love & am loved by someone who truly cherishes me, who has begun to eradicate the scars of the past, the lies that said I was not "enough". Not young enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not fun enough.
I tell you all of this because of a conversation I had yesterday with my almost 20 year old son. He was dismayed, hurt, and even embarrassed to learn my sister has not yet forgiven the events of the past. I did my best to explain, to try to put himself in her shoes, saying outright her outrage was born of love & loyalty to me. With the black & white view of the young he would have none of it. I have spent the last 14 hours teary, with a headache, because of all the creeds I live my life by forgiveness, grace & love are my foundation, and my beloved son has missed all of it.
Being fairly taciturn as a rule, the written word always a safer place for me to express myself, on this subject I have been most bold & vocal. Not vocal enough it seems.
I could quote great thinkers & comedians alike on the subject of forgiveness. But better than that I have lived it. Forgiving (and not just in this arena) has set me free to live my life openly with great joy. I may not have chosen this road but without the events of the past I would not have my amazing daughter, I might not have made the friendships I have, I would not be who I am today boldly writing this, I would not have the love & joy in my life that I am surrounded by, or the peace I rest in no matter what circumstance I face. God really does have a way of making ALL things work together for good.(Romans 8:27-29)
Forgiveness is not easy. I did not do it on my own. It was the great grace of God, it was the power of Holy Spirit, the patient love of Jesus. It was friends standing beside me, allowing me to vent, to rage & rail, to question. It was realizing that I have been forgiven much, who was I to sit in judgement? It was wanting to be utterly free, of being weary of having them in my head, of always dreading hearing of them, of running into them in a relatively small community.
I cannot make anyone forgive the hurts of the past or the present. What I can do is tell you it has made all the difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbCpy0CQEo
