How easy if would be for us if
forgiveness were just a simple matter of a few simple steps! We
expect such things in our society today, as if we could add water and
stir to find hassle-free answers to difficult problems. I've also
read that years of television situation comedies and dramas have
created the anticipation and expectation that most of our
relationship problems can be resolved in under sixty minutes. But
people and relationships are far more complex than this.
Though we can make general observations
about how to go about addressing offenses, we have no definitive road
maps that guide us . Jesus, John, Peter and Paul gave us parables
and instruction about the basics about disagreements and offenses.
They outlined our part and God's promises in repentance, forgiveness,
and pardon in terms of our sins against God and sins committed
against us. Disagreements result in offense, and we have a little
bit of guidance concerning them, too.
We know that forgiveness involves the
cancelation of debt so that we no longer demand or seek what is owed
to us by others. We've scratched the surface of the idea that
forgiveness flows directly out of the gratitude we learn at the foot
of the Cross. The rules of how to live have been written on our
hearts, and it is that guidance we must follow as we learn and grow
in faith. Forgiveness not only challenges the measure of love in our
hearts for others, but it radically challenges our faith, reflecting
how deeply we have allowed the love of God to permeate us. We must
also trust that God will work righteousness and goodness, even though
circumstances may not seem so by human standards or from our vantage
point.
Each person is like a unique work of
art, and our relationships become all the more complex when two
people build a friendship. We can use the general principles to find
our way through the journey on our way to forgiveness, but we must
work and search our souls for the proper answers in their proper
time. Each puzzle piece in the process fleshes out of a precious
promise to us from a loving God. To simplify the process of
forgiveness would cheapen us and the lovely complexity of the dance
we engage in within our relationships. But considering how connected
forgiveness of others is to God's forgiveness of us, we also cheapen
the Cross when we make forgiveness out to be simple.
The hidden benefit of working through
forgiveness, embracing it's difficulties and lessons, comes through
precious experience that illustrates new and more powerful elements
of God's heart for us in new ways. We learn both the power of His
resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings in a small way
which opens our eyes to the depths of His love and mercy. And in
following this painful path of death to our desires for earthly
justice in the ways that we would prefer, we find a new aspect of
love's transformative power within our relationships and ourselves.
The Path of Healing
In the most general sense then, we can
develop a general idea of what the path of healing looks like
following an offense, as David Stoop outlines in Forgiving
the Unforgivable, adapted here for our benefit.
Appropriate Blame
Blame tends to be a misunderstood
concept, even though one might think that we imperfect creatures it
well as the trait of dutiful,
mature responsibility which mistakes tend to require. Instead,
the word generally carries a negative connotation used to shirk
responsibility. Many posts to come will focus on many positive
aspects of this first stage of “appropriate blame” as Stoop
defines it, a subject that countless books have pondered. So many
complex factors affect this as illustrated in our brief discussion of
the Path of Denial alone. Wishful thinking as opposed to Sandra
Wilson's radical realism which births healthy expectation,
boundaries in relationships and “boundary busters,” gaps in our
emotional skill and maturity, obvious and hidden desires of our
hearts account – they account for just a few of those things which
affect our ability to see offenses clearly.
If relationships are something of a
dance of giving and taking, striking a balance of mutually
beneficial, gracious care with enjoyment of benefit in which both
parties give and receive that care, then both parties must share
responsibility for the state of the relationship. Sharing blame
requires love, trust, and faith in the process and in the parties
involved. Surely this cannot be something that can be easily reduced
to a list of tips and pointers on a screen at a lecture or a in a
single page in a book.
Another trait we inherit from God along
with justice is the deeper desire to be perfect. When we fall short
of perfection, we suffer some type of disappointment or loss, and
that loss must be mourned. Relationships are precious commodities
because the people in them are precious, and the more important the
relationship to us, the more we need to grieve those related losses.
If we are truly sensitive people who honor what Christ did for us on
Calvary, we want to learn from our failures and grow through what we
learn from them. Grieving becomes a vital part of that process.
Grief reminds us of who we are in
relationship to God – that He is God and we are not. In that
sense, our grief becomes a powerful act of worship that we can yield
unto God, declaring His strength and our dependency on Him in our
weakness. And we can celebrate the fact that our High Priest knows
exactly how we suffer, knowing intimately of our pain as well as the
comfort we need before we even know that we have need of it. Grief
draws us close to the heart of God and reminds us of the tender love
that provides all we need to offer forgiveness to others, just as its
unmerited blessing clothes us in beauty when we really only deserve
ashes and woe.
We also learn the discipline and
self-control that emotions like anger teach us as we venture through
the grief process. We learn to tame our tongues, cleanse our hands,
and then again yield them to God in worship. Would we even venture
such a cause apart from forgiveness and the lessons that the process
brings along with it? Would we be so compelled to take these
emotions, and through discipline, redeem them to work justice and
stand up in the face of adversity, ignoring justice because cheap
forgiveness without grief makes it a much more comfortable
alternative? Would we develop the precious commodity of perseverance
apart from grief's transforming process?
Grief also brings with it a sadness
which helps us understand ourselves. As Stoop describes it, in the
anger phase of grief, we focus primarily on the person who hurt us
and the other factors involved – all external factors. As we
understand and resolve those aspects of our losses, we slip into the
melancholy phase wherein we turn our focus inward. We evaluate
others, we evaluate the world, and then we evaluate ourselves as we
make the whole experience a part of ourselves as we embrace it. As a
consequence of this process we develop the remarkable ability to
empathize with others – a gift of grieving that no king's ransom
could ever purchase. This part of the transformation that grief
works in us prepares and enables us to serve as a healing agent of
comfort for others, just as Paul describes in 2
Corinthians 1:5-6.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a process that takes
through a labyrinth of choices which we have to make, over and over.
Forgiveness initially begins with a choice, but we continue to make
and affirm it again and again as we walk through the experience and
the lessons it teaches us. We move back and forth, in and out of
anger, in an out of bargaining and depression. Even after we seem to
make peace with all that has happened to us, we can still find
ourselves remembering the feelings we felt so strongly in the
beginning of the journey.
Especially if we are in a relationship
with a particularly dysfunctional person, and if we are dysfunctional
ourselves, new offenses challenge our resolve and can tempt us to
backtrack. We may find that, despite our best efforts to work
through forgiveness effectively the first time through it, we can
find that we left a corridor in our heart untouched, and a new
experience reveals it to us. God takes forgiveness to an even deeper
level in us when this happens, but that new process brings with it
new temptations to serve ourselves and resist the Path of Healing.
remember the onion!
Of the many things that Stoop suggests
in his book, he notes that it is most beneficial to avoid walking the
Path of Healing alone. Friends, loved ones, and counselors can help
encourage us and can give us perspective and feedback. Like the Word
of God does for us, good companions on our journey with whom we enjoy
love and trust can serve as a mirror for us into which we can gaze.
They can lovingly reflect back an image of our strengths and
weaknesses so that we can see how we can improve and grow.
I also like the suggestion of
developing a forgiveness ritual, and I've found them to be helpful to
me on my own journey. A good example of such a ritual that I use
involves writing a letter to those who have hurt me and what I
understand of the process. The last time I went through the process,
burning the letter wasn't convenient, so I shared the letter with a
trusted friend, then shredded it with her in her paper shredder after
I prayed to surrender it to God, and I left the shreds there for her
to discard. I couldn't allow myself to go back to paste that offense
back together again if I tried, even if I had access to the tiny
pieces anyway. Developing such rituals can help us comprehend the
process in a more meaningful way, affirming our resolve and
self-discipline in the process.
Considering Reconciliation and
Learning to Trust
The step of reconciliation, if
warranted, has been discussed in some depth here and further posts
will expound upon the topic, as will the subject of trust. For now,
note that Stoop includes these as the final step in the Path to
Healing for individuals to choose to take these next steps. I might
quibble with him, though, as I would argue that trust precedes or
coincides with recociliation as an integral function. But for the
purposes of an overview, like a satellite photo that shows us the
most basic landscape, we can develop an idea of our journey's
destination and primary tasks and landmarks along the way.
Forgiveness is the final form of love.Reinhold Niebuhr
~~~
More
encouragement to follow concerning
the
Path of Healing
in
the process of forgiveness.
