Hard Road to Forgiveness
It's difficult when you've been hurt in any number of common social ways, to want anything but the other person to understand your pain. It can take superhuman strength to overcome the need to strike back. You want so badly to be understood, validated, and sympathized with.
And yet, as we mature, we learn how sometimes how RIGHT it is to swallow your pain and for the sake of peace, pretend it never happened. As part of the grown-up social graces, we learn that justice is not always in our best interests. And we don't always have to act in our own best interests even if it is. We can take the burden on ourselves of overlooking another person's errors. And that's difficult, and it's what it means to be an adult.
How often, though, do we digest these mistakes - an unkind or thoughtless word here and a thoughtless gesture there - take in these stupidities and cruelties and use them as a mounting pile of evidence that we are better than that person who hurt us? It's a shortcut. We pretend that we are forgiving them, but they are in our minds: arrested, convicted, and consigned to eternal ignominy.
I am more vulnerable on this blog than is wise, and my flaws are all visible. I want you to see them, because I want you to know that I'm not pretending (even if I am a drama queen). Words do not hide me. Can I even begin to tell you the number of times my careless words or impassioned tone of voice has inadvertently hurt someone I care about? The only people who can remain friends with me tolerate my smaller faults and confront me with the larger ones, and allow me to apologize.
Forgiveness is hard work for me, and part of my process is being honest about how people have hurt me, though I don't always involve them in the process unless they ask. But when I hold them responsible for their actions, I am acknowledging that they are like me, and not better or worse. I am giving them dignity and respect, not dismissing them as the monster I have built in my mind. THAT is the kind of forgiveness I want to give and receive, and it is a hard road.
Again, I'm talking about insults and social mistakes that everyone exchanges at some time, not the huge evils and violence that sometimes happens. There are monsters. There is violence, and there are tragedies in many lives. That is a different kind of pain that must be processed in a different way.
But I am incalculably grateful for real forgiveness that comes not out of fear (that I'll kill myself, or that they'll look callous), but because the person giving love is full of love: love that isn't about me, the receiver, but is about them, the giver. It spills out of them.
When you see a person and your relationship in their infinite and invaluable contexts, you can take the hard road to forgiveness. This post is to say thank-you to my best friends for giving this to me.
And yet, as we mature, we learn how sometimes how RIGHT it is to swallow your pain and for the sake of peace, pretend it never happened. As part of the grown-up social graces, we learn that justice is not always in our best interests. And we don't always have to act in our own best interests even if it is. We can take the burden on ourselves of overlooking another person's errors. And that's difficult, and it's what it means to be an adult.
How often, though, do we digest these mistakes - an unkind or thoughtless word here and a thoughtless gesture there - take in these stupidities and cruelties and use them as a mounting pile of evidence that we are better than that person who hurt us? It's a shortcut. We pretend that we are forgiving them, but they are in our minds: arrested, convicted, and consigned to eternal ignominy.
I am more vulnerable on this blog than is wise, and my flaws are all visible. I want you to see them, because I want you to know that I'm not pretending (even if I am a drama queen). Words do not hide me. Can I even begin to tell you the number of times my careless words or impassioned tone of voice has inadvertently hurt someone I care about? The only people who can remain friends with me tolerate my smaller faults and confront me with the larger ones, and allow me to apologize.
Forgiveness is hard work for me, and part of my process is being honest about how people have hurt me, though I don't always involve them in the process unless they ask. But when I hold them responsible for their actions, I am acknowledging that they are like me, and not better or worse. I am giving them dignity and respect, not dismissing them as the monster I have built in my mind. THAT is the kind of forgiveness I want to give and receive, and it is a hard road.
Again, I'm talking about insults and social mistakes that everyone exchanges at some time, not the huge evils and violence that sometimes happens. There are monsters. There is violence, and there are tragedies in many lives. That is a different kind of pain that must be processed in a different way.
But I am incalculably grateful for real forgiveness that comes not out of fear (that I'll kill myself, or that they'll look callous), but because the person giving love is full of love: love that isn't about me, the receiver, but is about them, the giver. It spills out of them.
When you see a person and your relationship in their infinite and invaluable contexts, you can take the hard road to forgiveness. This post is to say thank-you to my best friends for giving this to me.
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