Forgiveness Needs a Pain to Conquer
I used to keep a journal in junior high of all the bad things that happened to me. Writing in this journal and rereading its stories made me feel angry, cheated, and pitiful.
I can't tell you why I thought keeping this journal was a good idea but I can tell you that one night I got tired of it. I ripped up the journal and threw it away. I threw it away in the big trash can down at the bottom of my driveway because I needed it to be as far away from me as possible.
I never talked about this journal and I haven't thought about it in years. But today, that journal came back to haunt me.
In junior high, rereading those painful stories took me to a place where I was intimately familiar with the ravaging effects of being offended and to a place where I never expected any good from anyone. But, when I threw that journal away, I decided that I would never allow myself to feel hurt, offended, or pitiful again.
For years I haven't felt hurt by another human being.
I have lived very, very freely and forgiveness has flowed both joyfully and abundantly.
Until today.
My endless forgiveness tank was awesome until I actually understood what forgiveness is and what is required to give it.
I can't forgive before I've admitted to myself that I've been hurt. I can't forgive until I've admitted that there is something to forgive.
This seems like a, "Ya duh, Taylor." kind of thing, but I had never processed that before.
That pain is necessary is new to me.
And it may be new to you too.
Recently, I was very, very hurt by someone. But, as usual, I didn't allow myself to believe that I had been hurt. I didn't want to accept that I had been wronged because...well...that hurts. And I was not about to let angry, pitiful junior high Taylor rear her fuming head. I immediately focused on "forgiving" and "loving" despite what happened.
I wanted forgiving to be easy like it always had been. I wanted to numb the pain and just pour out grace like a good little Christian girl should.
But, when we numb pain, all the "grace" and "forgiveness" that we pour out is pretty meaningless; meaningless because "grace" and "forgiveness" become our way of hiding from pain instead of facing it.
This realization was exceedingly unpleasant for me. I had to hurt to forgive.
So, for the first time in years I let myself be a human and experience the pain from being wronged by another human. There were tears involved.
I took a walk and finally understood why so many people had such a hard time forgiving.
It's hard when you've been sexually abused. It's hard when your dad yells at your mom. It's hard when your boyfriend breaks promises. It's hard when she brags in your face about getting your dream role.
I wanted to forgive though. But, turns out I am extremely unfamiliar with forgiving. I had no idea where to start.
I started by trying to numb the pain again: making excuses for this person's behavior and telling myself over and over that I didn't even deserve to feel hurt.
It didn't work.
This time, with this new level of pain, I couldn't find any reason to forgive. This person is a sinner. What they did was wrong. And I am the one who is suffering immensely because of it. There hadn't even been a sincere apology.
Embarrassed, hopeless, and hurt, I asked the Lord to teach me to forgive.
God locked eyes with me and said:
"Taylor, you don't have any reason to forgive if you're not looking at Me. Look at me. I'm your reason."
God is good enough to overwhelm my pain. God is gracious enough to win my admiration. God is gentle enough to make me feel safe. God is loving enough to inspire me and cast me into awe.
He is someone I desperately love and want to worship.
I made my love for God and desire to worship my reason to forgive.
So I sat in my dorm room closet and wrote in my new journal praying, "God, You see how much this has hurt me. You see how badly I want to be righted and to understand why this happened. But God, even more than being righted and having understanding, I want to love and worship You."
The beauty of forgiveness comes from looking at your pain dead in the face, allowing all its sharpness cut through you, and still choosing to love.
Choosing to love the person and choosing to love God more than your desire to be righted.
Not from numbing the pain and trying to find reasons outside of God to forgive.
Just think if Jesus had decided to numb His pain instead of truly forgiving?
We wouldn't be forgiven because He would have told Himself that He wasn't hurt and there was nothing that needed forgiving. But history shows that He thought differently. He decided to fully experience the wrath of God--brought on by our sin--and to love and save us anyway.
Jesus knew that forgiveness needs a pain to conquer. Jesus knew that loving God is the way to conquer.
Psalm 130:4, "But with You there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve You."