For-Give-Ness
As I begin this post, I almost feel as if I have no idea what I will write… Let me open as a vessel and let it flow through me…
Forgiveness has been on my mind. I’m trying to understand it. I know what, it just comes to me now. I shall not write from my head, but let the words come through from my heart and soul. I don’t think true forgiveness happens in the mind. The effect of it affects the mind in a positive way.
In the past I have had a lot of confusion around forgiveness. This is how it went: Something was said or done to me, and I felt hurt, overlooked, disrespected, and unloved. When the feelings of anger and resentment would rise, I felt like I was entering forbidden territory. I was not allowed to feel those things because they were sin. It became a thing of weighing the action that was done to me against my own feelings. In my mind, one of us was right and one was wrong. And if I was hurt and was feeling angry or resentful, that wasn’t right, so in that moment I would take the burden of what I perceived was done against me and make it all about me. I would try within my mind to free them of any accusation whatsoever and then take the unresolved burden on myself and make myself wrong. I added the burden of the action done against me AND my response and reaction to it to my already heavy and overflowing pack of similar burdens. Oh help… I needed a resolution to these situations to feel better, and since one couldn’t be found anywhere, I would attempt to resolve it within myself by taking everything on and somehow dealing with it. Hear me now… Do you know what that did for me? It might have relieved me of bad feelings toward the other person for a time, but inside me, this burden became a dead weight, or a festering ulcer. My burden of worthlessness and shame grew and grew… I felt like I was unworthy to move in the world. I truly believed somehow I was inferior to most other people. I was nervous and anxious inside. I was sweet and never picked a fight on the outside. I was terrified of conflict, because that meant more burdens to carry and more proof that I wasn’t worthy. Over time the resentment grew inside me. It was resentment mostly toward myself. I could go on and on…
Now I am trying to grasp a new understanding of forgiveness. And not only understanding, but learning how to LIVE in it. At this time I feel like I have no cut and dried beliefs on this subject, so the next thoughts may come out as questions, things to be considered…
What if it was never about someone being right and the other being wrong? If I was in their shoes, had lived their life until now, would I have done or said the very same thing? Probably. I am analyzing and judging them according to MY understanding, and sometimes according to how I perceive in my mind the perfect person would act. How unfair!
What if we are all God’s children dressed up in prickly suits sometimes, and once in a while the prickles get too close. Are we the prickly suits? Or are we the person under the prickly suit?
I think about Jesus. He was able to see through or beneath what was on the outside or the exterior. He said to “Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you.” I don’t think he meant to take on the burden of those actions on ourselves. He knew those actions weren’t really coming from who God made those people to be. They were coming from the identifications the people had with who they thought they were and what they believed. That is why He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He didn’t say we couldn’t feel angry or hurt, but He tried to teach us that those are only outward things, they aren’t true or real. They are our ego, and our ego is powerless and helpless and scared. I can feel those feelings but not make them real. I don’t need to act on them in a hurtful way and take them out on another person. That is only the ego’s effort to make my feelings real. I can and need to feel them fully, but realize that I am not those feelings. I am only the observer of those feelings, and as they come, they will go, if I give them room to do so. The things I hold onto are the things that hold me captive…
What if next time I am told something that cuts like a knife in my heart, I can just stand there or sit there, quietly, and look the person in the eye with curiosity. What if I recognize that nothing they say or do really can touch me or define me, and I don’t mean that in a spiteful or defiant way. What if I could see deeply into their eyes, deep enough to see the sacredness of who they are beneath the hurt and the limitation of fear? What if I could see a mirror of myself in those eyes, the oneness of the two of us that lies deep beneath the words or actions that are only ripples on the surface? What if?…
I’m starting to wonder if forgiveness is the ability to see these things that are done against us and our own mistakes and realize that they aren’t very real anyway. They are coming from the version of us that feels broken, unworthy, and dirty. If I can realize this, then forgiveness can become easier. It’s like when these things happen I can whip out my love goggles and put them on. Love for me, love for them. This isn’t about making someone right and someone wrong. This is about seeing that someone ( and maybe both of us) is hurting. This is about recognizing the fear in the situation and the perceived need to protect something because it’s being threatened (my safety, a belief, my reputation, etc.) Ultimately, this is about setting them free, and myself free because this “situation” could be mostly an illusion of who we perceive who we are. Sometimes real forgiveness involves boundaries too. Big subject, but I’ll say just one sentence. Sometimes true love is about giving space for yourself and the other to have some distance in order to keep these “firecrackers” from igniting every time you come in contact with each other.
Jesus also told his disciples about forgiving this many times - 70 x 7!!! I used to look at that as a mighty assignment. But think of it, maybe it gets easier and easier. Then we could probably even go beyond 490 times! But I have a feeling those “situations” that need forgiving would stop long before that. Because when you take your own fear and reaction out of it and learn to bring in love by not giving the action or words any energy, within yourself or toward the other one, these situations have no other option but to stop occurring.
Whew, my brain is tired after this! Talk about recalibration. But I really think this might be closer to what Jesus was trying to teach us…
When you feel hurt, betrayed, unseen, or unsafe - pause and breathe. Ask quietly: “How would LOVE see this now?” Then feel the presence of Jesus beside you, helping you lift the veil of fear. Forgiveness becomes not something you do, but something you allow to happen through you. It’s a softening into Truth.
In love,
RCY
