Sometimes God asks me to do things that make me
uncomfortable. Usually when that
happens, I don’t really understand the purpose behind whatever it is that he is
asking me to do. Like…why does it matter
if I say or do this specific thing? But…I
know there’s always a reason, even if I never find out what it is. This is one of those things. I don’t even know how this blog post will
come out – but I have anxiety about posting it and it possibly making someone
mad. When I first felt like God was
telling me to post about this subject, I was like “whoa…what if ________ reads
it and gets mad at me?” I still have a
little anxiety about it, but the reality is…if God asked me to do it, then
there’s a reason. So here we go… Oh…FYI,
I may leave what comes next without editing it much…or maybe not…but at this
very moment…I have *no idea* how my words will come out on this issue.
Why is it ok for God to ask me to forgive someone who hurt
me, a lot, even though that person has never apologized – and I doubt that they
ever will. Why is it ok for God to ask
me to love that person and pray for them?
Why, when they should have never done what they did and won’t even take
ownership of it, should I be kind to or speak kindly to this person? Shouldn’t they have to at least say “I’m
sorry”? Or, if they can’t do that, then
shouldn’t they at least admit that they did wrong? Or, if they still can’t even do that, shouldn’t
they at least say “I should have done something differently”?
God is showing me where I am holding onto anger in my heart
instead of forgiving. One thing I have
learned about forgiveness is that, like healing, it also happens in
layers. At least for me it does. I started a few years ago with God showing me
that he wanted me to forgive a specific person and it made me so angry. It took me a few weeks (or was it months) to
even be able to say to God “please put forgiveness in my heart for ____________
because I don’t have it” and it has grown from there. And even though I have made so much progress
in this area and I have walked down this road towards forgiveness, I guess I am
still not there. Seriously, how many
times can I forgive this person before all the anger is gone? Only it’s not anger. Anger is just the safer thing to feel, it’s
pain and grief.
And to be honest I think to God “it’s not fair to ask me to
share this with people when it hurts so much” but then…he has reasons even if I
don’t know them. So I am (once again) at
a point where I would rather be angry at this person and remind myself of all
the reasons why I have a right to be angry and how it’s not fair, it’s *not
fair* that I should even have to think about forgiving. I know all the stuff about how God forgave me
and if God forgave me then I should forgive – but that makes no sense to my
brain. I know God sees sin as sin, but I
have degrees of wrongness in my mind and some things are just too wrong to
forgive and that’s all there is to it…end of story.
But then God reminds me that this pain that I feel and all
these tears are only because I haven’t forgiven and he reminds me of the peace
that is available. And right now I am
remembering the moments when I have had these huge revelations of how
forgiveness isn’t for the other person it’s for me. It makes me whole, not them. It gives me peace, it allows me to love, it
helps me to let go of lies that I have believed. But even remembering those things doesn’t
make it easy. (Or even make me want to
forgive)
I think (and have many, many times) why can’t I just not
ever speak to that person again? But
then I remember (again) that the pain would still be there. Why can’t God just take the pain and allow me
to keep my anger? Isn’t it
justified? But what purpose would the
anger have if it doesn’t have pain to cover up?
And if forgiveness helps so much, then why do I go through this struggle
more than once? And why can’t I seem to
get to the end of it? Can’t I just say “God,
I forgive ____________ for every single thing that they ever did or said that
caused me pain.” End of story. I think
that won’t work because forgiveness only works when you know what you are
forgiving and you make a choice to forgive specifically for that pain.
And I think (I could be wrong, but I think this is the
truth) that the pain comes up again because there is a new lie that is being
revealed that needs healing. I could
cover a wall with the lies that God has healed me from, and there have been tears
almost every time. I think that with the
revealing of a new lie that has taken root in my heart, there is pain (more
pain with some lies than with others) and then the choice to forgive must be
made regarding the hurt that is associated with that lie/pain.
I don’t even know what the lie is this time…what keeps
coming to mind is that this person never loved me or cared about me. But to me that doesn’t feel like a lie, it
feels like the truth. Maybe that’s
something I will have to work out with God.
I have learned to ask him “what is the lie that I need to break here?”
and he will always show me. Ok – I think
that is all. To be really honest, I’m
not sure how I feel about posting this (and maybe I secretly hope that the
internet will go down…it certainly crashes enough when I want it to work
properly) but if I know anything for sure…it’s that God knows what needs to
happen (way way way) better than I do.
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