Forgiveness

I am working on maintaining my stance of forgiveness for a few people right now.

The biggest one is the person who worked in InterVarsity's headquarters and called the ultimate shots over my situation in Switzerland.

She knew before I went that my boss had a history of abusing his staff. She bullied me around quite a bit throughout the year. And she completely refused to protect me in the long run.

It was a betrayal ranking in the top five of my short 34 years of life to date. And the anger came back with a vengeance when I was in Guatemala last April, visiting a former monastery where I would have stayed with my college friends on a short-term mission, had she not bullied me out of going, saying I needed to focus on Switzerland.
I was just beside myself - seeing this beautiful monastery that I could have enjoyed (can you imagine being a college student, having the run of this place?) with my friends as a last hurrah, friends in whom I had invested some of the most motivated years of my life through good and bad times. I felt deeply robbed and absolutely furious. I could not get this opportunity back...not even alone, as the monastery had been turned into office space.

The rage I felt probably also encompassed bits of the Swiss disaster, and the realization now that as an adult, I can and must make my own decisions, and nobody has the authority to stop me from choosing to do what is right. It is my choice to submit to authorities or refuse them, and to accept whatever consequences might come along with that choice. This woman at InterVarsity kept saying I had no choice, that she was the one making the choices. Now, at the age of 34, I realized that I had the choice all along... I just abdicated it, albeit under repeated situations of extreme pressure. It was absolutely mind-bogglingly frustrating. No wonder I had post-traumatic stress disorder when I got home from Switzerland - I was tied up in knots between my heart knowing that I was right, and being bullied around by people who had no right to make the choices over my head that they made.

Recently I read an article about a man falsely convicted of murder who was released after years and years, when DNA tests proved he was innocent. Ten years after he got out, DNA proved another guy on death row with him was the murderer. When the prosecutor told the innocent man of the new findings about the true killer, he screamed at her. All the years of false accusation, the years of freedom robbed from him, the misery of being not just in jail, but on death row, the horrible ruination of his reputation - it all built up and poured out from a pent-up rage at the utter injustice of it.

And then he told her he forgave her, and would harbor no continuing bitterness against her.

That is what I long to do with some people at whose hands I have suffered. I want to speak and spell out with chilling accuracy the seriousness of what they did to me and have them sit there and hear it, hear the damage they inflicted. And then, as an act of freedom and obedience and trust in God, tell them that I forgive and bless them and want God's best for them, rather than the worst that hell could throw at them. Healing prayer author Leanne Payne says that these are the steps of naming the sin and then forgiving the sinner. The sin itself is not "okay" - its seriousness is validated by the reminder that this was a terrible thing requiring the death of Jesus in the most excruciating manner. Because of Him alone are we able to forgive anyone.

Dominican Father Emmerich Voigt says that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and then expecting the other person to die.

Corrie ten Boom traveled the world reminding Christians that if they didn't forgive their enemies, God would not forgive them.

Ever since visiting Rwanda, every time I get to the line, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," I hear the gravity of it. It is one of the most challenging things a human being can say. "Forgive me to the extent that I forgive the most heinous people who have hurt me."

And whenever we pray, "may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace," I think about Rwandan survivors praying this for the hundreds of thousands of victims of brutal slaughter. If ever there was a time to pray for the peaceful rest of souls, it was then.

And then you have to go back to forgiving people who perpetrated the need for such a prayer.

Oh Lord, I forgive. I forgive because You died for me and forgave me. I forgive because I need forgiveness constantly. And You forgive me as freely as a parent forgives a toddler who throws tantrums every day. Thank You for loving me that way. Amen.