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David Hayward 1 year, 8 months ago.
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So I was reading today’s daily bread and it triggered something about the topic of forgiveness and questions about it I’ve had for a long time.
It’s such an emphasised topic in churches (in my experience anyway). I’ve heard sermons on how someone will forgive the murderer who killed their family, or someone forgiving a terrorist who slaughtered hundreds.
These are amazing examples of humanity, but when the average person is faced with them on a Sunday morning, how can we respond? It’s a bit daunting to live up to to say the least. What even is forgiveness? Just the act of saying “I forgive you”? How do we define forgiveness in instances much less dramatic than those mentioned above?
What do people think?MxMagpie – good questions. I think I have always balked at the definition of forgiveness. In my experience, it looked a whole lot more like denial than reconciliation. And how does one reconcile if the offending person does not see how they have hurt you? How do we reconcile when the wound cannot be repaired – what if there is death involved?
I have not really studied how South Africa set up their Truth and Reconciliation process but it has obviously set the groundwork for much healing and recovery.
I appreciate David’s post and the idea of forgiveness as a profound act of self-respect makes sense. That is not how it is used, manipulated, in most circumstances. If I think of forgiveness as a process, rather than something I bestow – it starts to make more sense. I also suspect that forgiveness works like mourning – to spend time with a loss, or a wrong, in a way that allows you to move through it, not just ignore the impact that it has had. It takes longer than people think. People who have not worked through a loss or a wrong, expect you to recover in a few months. People who have know that loss or a grievous wrong changes everything and will resurface until you have had time and opportunity to live through it. That can take years.
And this is all a profound process in response to profound wounds. What about slights? What about minor wrongs? I think I tend to try to ignore them (that denial bit) but sometimes they become the brickwork of resentment that I am standing on – then I can’t see that person from any other vantage point. Then every interaction I have is from that perspective and that person, the one I am resenting, will always be seen as the offender in my eyes. How do we let go of a perspective that judges another without opening ourselves up to being wronged, yet again?
Thoughts?
I tend to give forgiveness a lot of importance, generally because I believe life is too short to hold grudges with people, but there are examples within my life why I find it particularly difficult to forgive. I haven’t fully began to forgive my mum for the years and years of emotional abuse she directed towards me. I hated her for a long time and I still do in some respects, but it is only recently that I have started to identify that perhaps its not her fault. And that perhaps, she is just mirroring the terrible upbringing she had (she had borderline alcoholic parents and grew up a very rough neighborhood). Still, full forgiveness of her has always been a great barrier of mine, and whenever the church would emphasize the need of forgiveness I would feel guilty, I would feel like I would have to pray to have the strength to forgive. And then there is the church… Could any of us here truly forgive the church for what they have done to our lives? There are a great many people on here who have suffered much greater oppression from the church, and over a much greater time, than I have, and I certainly have yet to find forgiveness for it. Its an on-going process…
But I believe the church puts empathsis on forgiveness for all the wrong reasons. Not simply out of humility for your fellow human-being, nor out of the pointlessness of holding grudges, but simply because Jesus did so, and the church desperately want to emulate him as much as they can. The fact is, Jesus was the epitome of patience, and God-incarnate, he loved everybody around him as God loves his creation, Jesus has the capability to forgive anybody (his entire mission depended on it) whereas we don’t, not all of the time anyway. And yes, forgiveness has to be genuine otherwise its simply denial, and that causes other problems.
I think ultimately, forgiveness is in all of our best interests which I think is why Jesus talked of it often. Its about living for the present and the future, rather than being stuck in the past, and the sooner we can let go of past grudges, the more free we can feel. But of course, its just not that easy for a lot of people, and a lot of the time, people simply do not deserve forgiveness. But then again, neither does humanity, but God still gave to us. Food for thought.
Yes, forgiveness can be very hard. And it’s so much harder when the other person (or institution) isn’t talking to you.
I’m separated. My marriage had a difficult breakdown and it is fair to say we both went into it with issues and unrealistic expectations. I’ve learnt a lot about myself through some quality counselling but I am not in contact with my ex-wife. This means I don’t know how she’s doing, if she’s even got counselling or if she’s even thought some of the problems were hers to own. I rather suspect not on that last point. :-/
It makes forgiveness over the emotional abuse from her to me very difficult. It makes me wary of committing to other relationships, even wary of opening up to friends. The scarring runs deeper than I ever suspected.
Will I ever reach a point where I can say I’ve forgiven her? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. Most of my emotions now over my failed marriage are sorrow and regret, not anger.
Here is my post about forgiveness:
http://www.thelastingsupper.com/topic/forgiveness/
In November I posted this response to one of David’s drawingss:
http://www.thelastingsupper.com/blog/2012/11/on-forgiveness-by-starfielder/
I still have lots of wonderings about forgiveness…
AnonymousI have hear some challeng things about survivors of concentration camps and their self esteem being held together by forgiving their opressors. I figure if after all the hell they went through then perhasps anyone else can do similar.
There have been one or two commenst about Jesus here so it seems folks are comfortable with talkign this way. Frogive me if this is not your bag. I am not here to prslitise. I am here to be of service. Shift was right about Jesus forgiving and humanity not deserving fogiveness. It’s also directive to forgive and if fogiveness is not given, God won’t forgive.I have hear the phrase that says that forgiveness is about letting the prisoner go free and realising the prosoner is yourself.
I’ve also heard people say they can never forgive and it is insesnsitive to suggest it hapens.
It is interesgin what David put up about the health benefits of fogiveness. I am led to belive that academic institutions have rejected any study about forgivenes in previous times, seein git as irrelevant but there now is a recognition of its benfits.
I know I was angry about something in my life one time. And whan out for a walk a thougth occurred to me about jesus saying “father forgive them” on the cross. I thought that and said the same for the people invovled, remebering that one of the people Jesus was talkign about was me. I woudl like to be treated that way for wrongs I have done.there were health benefis for me once I said the same words on behalf of others for their forgiveness and confessed and asked for forgiveness. There was a peace where before there had been stress, anguish, anger.
Nobody is perfect. The study talkedd abuot N. Ireland and there has been a lot of peace not compared to times in the 70’s when I was growing up in the UK and every news item it seemse had somethign about an IRA terrorist bomb going off. Now, Jerry Adams, a former and reformed terrorist has been part of the leadership in government in NI, serving alongside his former enemies in the Ulster Unionist Party. And I have hear it said by a father that if the cost of knowing is daughter is safe walking to shcool and back is having a former terrorist in govenrment then he would have a formenr terrorist in govermnet. One of my colleagues has been from NI. The other sied of the coin is fomr what she says in that there is still a lotof hatred. I live in Glasgow ans there is a lot of hatred beteween protestant and catholic. Sectarainism is rife and an ugly side to the culture. All going back to the days of Kind William of Orange overthrowing an opressive catholic King (King James I think it was). One footaball coach (soccor) Neil Lennon who coached the Calthoc tem “Celtic” has had bomb threats in the past, just for being a catholic.
So yup I’d love to see more forgiveness going around for the sake of the cultures in NI and Glasgow and by extension the world! Waht would it be like to have no war? Can you imagine?
Good questions, @MxMagpie
Oh forgiveness..what a confusing word it’s become to me! I have my own thoughts on it. My ideas may not resonate with everyone here, but I will share them nonetheless in case they’re helpful to even one.
But before I do, I just want to send virtual hugs to @staticsan (((((((HUGS)))))) You are in my thoughts..I’m so sorry for the painful times you are enduring, and I hope for healing and happiness in your future! I just wanted to reach out and send you some love and kind thoughts!
To me, forgiveness is not something that ever turned out to be healthy for me. At least not in the way I understood it, and therefore attempted to apply to my life. I basically became a floor mat for most people, because I couldn’t stand up for myself at all, and I had to “forgive” them for mistreating me. I was trained to view resisting my oppressors as sinful, simply because it was a form of vengeance, which was God’s job. Frankly, I think that it’s a horrible shame that I was taught this way, and that so many others are still being taught this way. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that attempting to get vengeance on people who have wronged me is any more healthy than limply laying back and letting them walk all over me. In my opinion, those are two extreme ends of the topic at hand…and I do believe there is a middle ground. I’m living it now, actually..not perfectly, you know, it’s a process..but, I’m beginning to do a few things that I would have never dreamed of a few years ago.
1. When particular events from my past come to my mind and bother me, I’m admitting to myself, and out loud whenever possible, that the wrong things that were done to me were, in fact, WRONG! Along with that, I’m saying that the people who did them were wrong in doing so. This is beginning to bring incredible freedom! It is as if, just by not admitting it, I’ve been a sort of prisoner of the people who wronged me…Denial and forgiveness can look like the same thing in certain cases, I believe. It’s not exactly the same kind of imprisonment as holding a grudge can put you in, but, it’s in the same family from what I can tell!
2. I’m no longer willing to just let someone walk on me. I won’t be used anymore!! I will be happy to help a person, or be kind to them to the very best of my ability, but I won’t be so nice that I just put myself out of time and resources for nothing in return anymore. I did that waaay too many times, and for waaay too many people..and it’s a shame that they used me, but it’s even more of a shame that I let myself be used over and over and over again, because I believed that I had to in order to be in right standing with God. NO MORE!! True, I’m not a believer in the Judeo-Christian God any longer, but it doesn’t mean I know for sure that there isn’t a Divine design, plan, purpose and all..I just don’t know, so I choose to subscribe to love as the main source of my moral guidance. And so, just because I’m not willing to be used, doesn’t mean that I am not loving..I strive to use tact and kindness wherever possible while maintaining an upright stance with people in my life who have proven to be users. One can be loving without being a pushover.
Hopefully I am coming across how I intend to..lol.3. I do not think of forgiveness as a single act that can be achieved through an always conscious effort. I believe that if I need to forgive someone, then I will go through whatever process I need to go through in order to achieve forgiveness. I will be aware that it’s happening, sometimes, and other times I won’t. In my life, I’ve recognized a couple of distinct instances in which I didn’t need to forgive the person, but I also didn’t need to hold a grudge. I just didn’t need the person in my life anymore! I didn’t go out of my way to kick them out, I just let it naturally happen..when you stop letting someone use you, they eventually move on to where people are “useable”…In other cases, I recognized that I need to forgive, just to be able to live with MYSELF let alone with the person who hurt me. A very personal example of this is from my marriage. I am IN PROCESS of forgiving my husband for some indiscretions. The pain is still there. The sadness and distrusting thoughts and feelings come back in waves sometimes. I’m not at complete forgiveness yet..but I LOVE him and he loves me. His mistakes were some big ones, but he’s shown me over the course of the last few years that he is actually working on himself. That has given me more and more and more confidence in the process of forgiving him that is taking place in me. I’ve had to take a good hard look at myself a few times, and deal with the urge to get even, or make his life harder because he hurt me. Ultimately, what has helped us both is to give each other TIME to work on ourselves and to discuss things together. We both recognize that it’s all a process…And sometimes I’m aware of it..and sometimes I’m not.
I’m with you Moxie.
AnonymousWay back in the early days of this community (before the name changed to TLS), I posted a very informative forum on forgiveness that thoroughly addresses all these issues you guys have brought up. If anyone knows how I can find my previous forum I will repost it. Admin David? Starfielder?
The context from which I speak about forgiveness/reconciliation is this: My dad -who was an Evangelical pastor – sexually molested me as a child and also my nieces years later. Instead of admitting what he had done, both my parents were (and still are 25+ yrs. later) in complete denial about the sexual abuse. My brother and I tried for 1-2 yrs. to discuss what happened with them, but all we got from them were more denials, constantly changing stories, many toxic letters containing undeserved accusations and guilt trips. My brother and I finally realized we had to forgive them for OUR own sanity, but we have NOT reconciled with them and probably never will. We have said all along that anytime they want to discuss the TRUTH about what happened, we are more than willing to meet with them. The ball’s in their court, and we have moved on with our lives. (I shared my “personal story” way back when on this website. I think it was titled Jo White: My Emotional Roller-Coaster Life, or something to that effect.)
Forgiveness insights in a nutshell: Before you can even think about forgiving people (or institutions) who deeply hurt you, you really need to understand what forgiveness is and what it isn’t. There are so many “Evangelical MYTHS” about forgiveness. (I used to call it “the Christian F-Word” before I understood real forgiveness.) Forgiveness is NOT ignoring or minimizing the offense, it is NOT sweeping the offense under the rug, and it is certainly NOT tolerating further abuse!
You forgive for YOUR sake – not the offender’s sake. You forgive so you can stop drinking poison expecting the other person to die. Forgiveness is your ticket to freedom! It is what enables you to move forward instead of staying hooked to the offender and the pain. Why let them continue to hurt and control you? Haven’t they done enough damage to you already? It’s like you are in a tug-of-war. Forgiveness is simply a choice to let go of your end of the rope. Your end of the rope is all you are responsible for. If they insist on hanging on to their end, that is THEIR problem – not yours. You are free to walk away and move on with your life.
Reconciliation is an entirely separate issue. There are plenty of “Evangelical MYTHS” about that too. Reconciliation is NOT automatic, and it is NOT an indicator of whether you have truly forgiven a person or not. (You can forgive someone for stealing your car, but you’re not going to hand them your car keys.) You cannot and should not try to reconcile with people who are in denial or who try to minimize or excuse the pain they caused you. True reconciliation can only occur when both parties come to the table willing to be honest about the wrong that was done. The offender must have some understanding of the depth of the pain they caused and show genuine remorse. (They can’t just be sorry that they got caught – they have to be sorry for what they did and for causing you pain.)
The best book I ever read on forgiveness/reconciliation is a little paperback called Forgive and Forget by Lewis Smedes. Well worth the read! Pretty much everything I’ve said I learned from that book. It honestly gave me my life back by enabling me to move on from all that craziness!
My thoughts –
The way I’ve heard forgiveness discussed and taught (and expected) in my churched past always seemed either trite or unrealistic. In thinking about the concept and how it’s defined on a personal level, I think it’s helpful to look at what it means outside of dealing with personal hurt or damage.
To forgive a debt is to cancel it when there’s no reasonable chance of collecting what’s owed. It’s rarely done to be nice or gracious. But if there’s no way – or at least no cost effective way – to collect on it, it’s written off and everyone goes their separate ways. If someone, whether accidentally or intentionally, defaults on a loan, the lender is not going to turn around and hand out another wad of cash to that person if they expect to remain solvent themselves. After a certain amount of time, if the one that defaulted has sufficiently proved that they or their circumstances are improved enough to take a chance on, the one whose debt was forgiven may be able to do business with that lender again.
I think forgiveness on a personal level is much the same. It doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. It doesn’t mean turning right around and giving someone an unwarranted level of trust. It does mean recognizing that the debt cannot be settled and the acknowledgment that pursuing restitution, revenge, or repayment will not provide an adequate remedy – or that the remedy just won’t be worth the cost in pain, energy, wasted time and effort, anger, or loss of integrity. It’s a decision that may be painful, but is simply necessary in order to move forward. Again, writing off a debt doesn’t mean turning around and making another loan. It may require walking away, leaving people, places, and circumstances behind to be freed from toxic expectations.
Forgiveness can’t be demanded – it can only be offered, and when offered, should be done wisely and thoughtfully or its impact on both the debtor and the forgiving creditor is diluted.
Jo, I remember reading your story! I remember your post about this. To find mine I looked up all the things I have ever posted and when I thought I posted it. They are listed in chronological order. Thanks for more thoughts. peace.
@moxierocks Thank you so very much. I’m trying not to tear up here at work…
@Jo White Your descriptions of forgiveness are immensely illuminating. Thanks to you and this forum, I’ve understood so much more about forgiveness in the last two days than in the last two years of counselling.
It reminds me of a scene in The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis where one of those on the excursion tries to guilt-trip their heavenly guide. However, their guide has understood true forgiveness and cannot be influenced. In fact, she just laughs off the attempt.
But without really understanding it, I have managed to “let go”. It took a very special prayer, but I know I am definitely the better for it.
Hey @jo white …. i just emailed you your story!
I have shared in other threads here the hurt my wife and I still endure from a severed relationship with our daughter and son-in-law which includes being denied all access to our only two grandchildren. For a long time we struggled with what could turn her against us so vehemently We questioned our parenting countless times. In the end we had to accept that she was responsible for her actions to even begin to find any peace.
A lot of details but the short version. She has always rebelled against any and all authority in her life from her very early teenage years. Any grounding over rule breaking was seen as a terrible injustice to her. This continued to school where her high school teachers would constantly share their frustration with us at how talented and intelligent she was and yet refused to do the assigned work leaving her to receive very poor grades. In college she was always the victim in her mind of a professor, the dorm monitors (Christian college), her work bosses, and anyone else who was in a position of authority over her. Our last years at home were only peaceful once we decided to stop holding her to most any kind of accountability in our home. Then she married and the pattern of treating us badly only continued. They used our cell phone plan to save money but would go 6 months without paying, though they had money for many extras. They would borrow our lawn mowers to avoid having to buy their own, yet would never return them and would respond to our requests to bring them back with “the garage is unlocked and we were welcome to go and get them”. These are only two examples of countless ways we let them take advantage of us to avoid conflict and have some relationship with our grand kids. The final straw came when they wanted to borrow my new motorcycle for a long weekend adventure that involved a 6 hour interstate trip, (our son-in-law was a very new and inexperienced rider) with friends including plans to bar hop one night in a large city they were unfamiliar with. We were terrified of them taking the trip and let them know it. What we had agreed to was to watch the kids for an overnight and let them take the bike to a nearby city for a romantic getaway. We told them any weekend in the coming two months except the weekend we had travel plans ourselves. Of course they determined this was the only weekend possible for their big adventure and continued to pressure us to cancel our plans and let them go on this trip, even after we repeatedly told them we were not comfortable doing so. Finally after cross words we told them flatly no, we would not loan the bike nor would we change our plans. I will never forget the response that came a day or so later. We were told that they had talked it over and they decided they were not going to allow us to attempt to “control” them like that. What followed escalated into them determining we were no longer allowed to even have contact with our grand kids. Many lies were manufactured to attempt to defend their position and shared with all family, and even multiple police agencies who they sought to have intervene in the face of accusations of me threatening them. Of course the evidence of threats given to the police was always found to be false. (I know people in both agencies who shared with me how their claims were determined to be completely unsubstantiated.) In truth what we were doing was finally standing up to the lies and confronting the abuse for the first real time. The lies became extremely bizarre and far fetched and we realized they mirrored so well the stories we were told by them when they were feuding with his parents.
One of the struggles we had to deal with was the accusations from a couple of people that we were unwilling to forgive. In truth we had offered our forgiveness multiple times in very loving letters seeking some form of reconciliation. What we decided against doing however, was pretending that we had not been hurt or that their actions were somehow acceptable. A year passed with no contact when we finally began to be engaged by them in very superficial ways. We accepted this for what it was and resumed a relationship with our grand kids. This lasted for a little over a year. It was all based on denial…but at least we had our grand kids. This past holiday season it all came crashing down for the second time when we asked to have the kids for a Saturday morning breakfast and were told no, we were not to be trusted with them alone. We were told we would not be allowed to control and manipulate our grand kids the way we had them. We were also told this decision was based on many biblical principles and because we did not know how to show Christlike love. When we asked how their treatment of us lived up to any such biblical principle of example of Christ’s love they simply accused us of manipulation. Then we were told we would not even be allowed to give our gifts to them but to give them to the “other” children in our lives. (We have a close loving relationship with the families of our best friends who consider us family) In all of this we had and still do have a strong desire to reconcile and give them the forgiveness that is in our hearts. But only they can choose to accept it. A false reconciliation is no reconciliation at all.
So here we are…for the second time seeing our grand kids used as a weapon against us. With forgiveness in our hearts…but recognizing the need for truth more profoundly than ever. As I have pondered the story of the prodigal son in Jesus parable I have come to realize a truth often hidden from many who would claim reconciliation at any cost. The loving and forgiving father waited. He stood ready, but knew that attempting to force a reconciliation before the son was ready would be fruitless. So we wait.
Wow Gary! This is so painful. It mirrors my story with the pastor of the church we left. He went to the board and community and told them we were unforgiving because we didn’t want to spend time with him. We told everyone that we totally forgive. But it wasn’t good enough.
All this to say, come be my kids grandparents! (I know it’s not the same but figured I’d say it anyway.) We would love to have someone want to make our kids breakfast and spend time with them.
We wait with you. peace.
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