Freedom in Forgiveness

The absence of an action when it comes to forgiveness means you have not extended the pardon required. Why is it required?  It is a process towards freedom.

Sometimes we wonder why God puts certain mandates and when one looks at the entire picture of life, there’s a realization that life in bondage is not living. With unforgiveness come resentment, anger and bitterness. All these things eat one up inside emotionally, physically and spiritually. It rages war on a person mentally. There is no good that comes from it.

When you surrender your will to hold a grudge, to hold one self or another hostage by punishment, you open up a door to receive love instead of the choice to harbor the ugliness called hate. The bible says that love covers a multitude of sin and that includes your own. Once you establish that no one is perfect, you become kinder towards the one person that is most important in your life.

Many people do not like the topic to forgive when it comes to themselves because it forces them to look within painful areas that have been dismissed or buried. The action required will cost them, but they fail to see the rewards they will reap because of it. Part of misery stems in unforgiveness. The person who constantly complains has not forgiven their inner person. The person who lives in resentment, hasn’t forgiven their choices. The person who whines about how unfair life is hasn’t extended grace to the face that reflects back in the mirror.

A step toward self-forgiveness is hard, but not impossible. It begins with saying the words “I forgive myself for” and inserting the words that have been buried perhaps for a life time. It requires a repeat of those words over and over again until it settles the heart and mind.

Not to accept forgiveness is hypocrisy.  It is a slap in God’s face when you use that excuse.

Today I challenge you to begin the process of freedom. Don’t let the difficulty or the temporary ugliness of it deter you. Be brave and know that the outcome is for your good, your growth and ultimately, for your freedom. 

Pursuit

I think one of the movies that I disliked the most was The Pursuit of Happiness. Although it had powerful messages, my take away was the feeling of a lot of sadness and despair. The triumph at the end was not enough to make me feel elated. I didn't walk away happy. For some reason I couldn't shake off the sadness it made me feel. There was just too much of it.

Life can be exactly like that. You can go through so much sadness that when things get better, you find it hard to shake off the sadness or stress.

Your life is meant to be full of happiness. It requires a pursuit. You have to pursue happy thoughts, positive words, good choices, positive outlook, good friends and the grit to keep with it.

There will be times when life will throw you negative, devastating curve balls. However, if you've been living on the side of sunshine, that light should dissipate the darkness rather quickly. Your view, your perception is always a choice.

To Forgive or Not Forgive

Choices can overwhelm. It can also excite or challenge. It is the one action that is presented to you each day. You make the decision to go one way or another. You have the option to think one way or another. Each day you are presented choices. Some have become routine. You have the potential to make change.

The choice to forgive is often dismissed because it is unimportant, shows weakness or is too painful to face. Yet, the mistakes of the past from years ago, from days passed, from yesterday or moments ago always want a day of reckoning. It is wrapped around with guilt, condemnation and loathing. To forgive others is a task. To forgive the person you represent is a choice. You’d rather sentence the ‘you’ to jail where punishment is warranted. Each time the ‘you’ feels pain it is met with a deserving affirmation and an emotional pat on the back. All this is a choice to avoid forgiveness and ensure that there is some type of retribution in place to fit the crime, your mistake.

If it were up to God, He wouldn’t give you a choice. He would point blank tell you, it is necessary to forgive and you have no choice. Oh wait He did say that, but the catch is you still have free will. You have the ability to accept the mandate or dismiss it. Mandate is such a strong word. Again, it’s one of those things you do not like to hear. You want to be the rebel and do you own thing but then you are reminded, if you believe in a God of love, that there must be a good reason why He feels so strongly about this one subject. You get it when it comes to the forgiveness of others but you don’t want to lump the forgiveness of self in the equation.

You often think that to forgive is a choice and it is not. You may want to lump it into the choice bucket and think all is well with the world, but your choice to ignore this mandate will keep you in a miserable state. To forgive is a must, if you want to be free. You view freedom as a gift but it is actually something that comes with a cost and a very high one for that matter. Freedom is earned, is worked for and it requires sacrifices. The forgiveness of self brings freedom, but it will cost you. 

Your Freedom Circle

A few weeks ago, Fiona Mellett was at the Spanish Ministry's women's conference at our church, and she mentioned how important our circle of freedom was. I had a light bulb, aha moment.

During this holiday, we talk about and emphasize the importance of our freedom as a country and all that we are afforded as liberties. However, we tend to forget that God has also given us the greatest freedom that comes through His son Jesus.

What she explained as a visual was that we have a freedom circle. It's the invisible boundary where we do not allow anything negative disturb our freedom and inclusive is our peace. We do not let other's actions, behaviors or words disturb us, define us or dictate our moods.

We understand that our freedom had a huge price tag that cannot ever be paid by us but has already been paid at the cross. Because of that knowing and acknowledgement, we don't allow that freedom to be compromised, ridiculed, abused or be impacted by other's definitions of freedom.

Your circle of freedom is maintained by your diligence of knowing who you are in Christ by intimate relationship with Him. It's very personal and cannot be done for you, or even be explained for that matter. What I mean is that your relationship with Jesus is tailored between you and Him. It is genuine and exclusively yours. It's the most intense relationship you will ever have because you are continually falling into a chasm of love that does not end. You will never understand it, until you experience it.

Your freedom circle is tied to your identity or better yet, let's say knowing your identity.

I Could Not Forgive Myself

It was a few days after New Year’s Eve about 10 years ago, and I was up in Long Island visiting my sister. She had just found out she was pregnant and we were all excited. The phone rang. It was my cousin. Her sister was missing and she was a bit worried after making a few phone calls to friends. I picked up the third phone call from my cousin. The news brought me to my knees. Desi had committed suicide. What happened next was a blur. Apparently the anguish inside came out in loud cries that caused the neighbor downstairs to run up to find out what happened. The next thing I knew, I was being cradled by my sister’s neighbor. I was inconsolable.

You see months before Desi and I had a pretty, bad fallout. The time had passed and I didn’t want to apologize because I felt she was in the wrong. She was also the child I wanted to adopt when she first came into our family. Desi, for me, was one of my little girls. The news of her passing felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest. I blamed myself for not reaching out more. I blamed myself for not adopting her. I blamed myself for missing the mark with one of my own. How could I help countless young people and let one of my own slip through my hands?

I could not forgive myself for all those things and more. I beat myself up mercilessly for not asking her for forgiveness and mending fences. Sometime during making arrangements, my cousin Maggie told me that Desi was not mad at me anymore and talked about getting together with me. Although that should have given me comfort, I felt like I failed miserably. The thought that she experienced that horribly dark place haunted me.

I had to find that place of forgiveness for myself. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. It was a journey that took a long time. There are still days where I need to forgive again. How did I get there? I realize I cannot undo the past. All I can do is learn and try not to repeat the same mistakes. Desi provides me motivation to help others and is one of the reasons I have become sensitive to those that struggle and who dance with the thought of ending it. Many folks call these people cowards and that’s not true. I believe folks are mentally ill when they reach that decision. They collapse under the pressures that they can no longer handle and the enemy takes advantage of that. Since the battle is in the mind, theirs is fertile soil for this extreme. Our mission is not to be critical of these poor souls because all of us can fall into a deep pit of despair given certain circumstances.

It’s my prayer that by my sharing this story, it motivates you to forgive yourself and harness what you’ve learned to help others. 

Forgive Me

Excuse me…pardon me…forgive me. Words we say without thought to others as a reflex, the ingrained. It’s part of the politeness that is expected and yet inwardly we are rude to the most important person. We are critical and often ruthless. We dredge up our faults as a lashing-reminder that we fall short, we don’t make the mark, and we’re somehow damaged beyond total repair.

Our brokenness is our excuse not to move forward, not to get out of our despair and to remain in the safety of the cocoon others cannot or do not want to penetrate. The place we call refuge is an illusion cleverly created to appease the mind because that is where the torture resides. We find ways to quiet the voices inside that accuse us, that make us feel guilty, ashamed and not worthy of any forgiveness.

Forgive me? Why should that be? I have not earned it. I cannot or will not earn it. To be honest, I do not deserve it. It will always be outside my reach. That is the thought of all of us and it washes over like a tidal waves and engulfs us when we least expect it. It leaves us cripple and vulnerable. The aftermath is the rawness of self-awareness, the fault and blame lies with the “me”, the “I”, the person I am so intimately acquainted with.

And yet, deep down like everyone else, I do want to forgive this person I know so well. I want a second, a third or umpteenth chances to prove that I’m not so bad. I make mistakes. I want the opportunity to not only shine on the outside but within. I want the peace inside to last longer. I wonder why it’s so hard to forgive myself for being flawed. My imperfections glare at me, taunt me at times and whisper in a menacing tone, you cannot and will not forgive. It holds me captive and every time I feel like I’m about to break free, it drags me back like a bully. I wonder, what is wrong with me?

There is a voice that is louder than my own that pulls me like an opposite pole. It becomes louder and louder with conviction of what I should believe. The goal is to drown my own voice of unforgiveness and pity. These two brothers that haunt and destroy start to bow to this known voice. Its crescendo reverberates within my being and washes over me like a soothing blanket. I feel peace and I begin to accept that perhaps there is forgiveness for me. I forgive me for small short comings. I forgive me for wrong attitudes. I forgive me for wrong expectations and regrets. I forgive me for bad choices whose consequences dance before my mind’s eyes. As I go through my laundry list, it becomes harder and the forgiveness begins to slow down but the music in my heart that has been released is relentless. It pushes me, encourages me, and chides me to move ahead. I surrender and I forgive…me. I forgive me for the bad and the ugly. I begin to let go.

This becomes a daily practice for me with dismay that changes to exhilaration at the discovery that there’s freedom in the forgiveness of me. I forgive me. I pause and I accept. Tomorrow I may have to repeat. I look forward and I don’t but I know I must. The ‘cannot’ or ‘will not’ is no longer a valid excuse. I will forgive because I have already been forgiven. 

How Do You Want to be Treated?

"Little Kristen and Little Lindsey, you need to treat others the way you want to be treated." How often have we said that to our children when they were in a playground or in school? We probably repeated it more than one thousand times in order to ingrain it into their heads. The result and expectation was that they would treat others well but that’s not always the case.

I am happy to report that my daughters do treat others well now that they’re young adults. Now that I think of it, they treat others how they want to be treated but are not always get reciprocated. Why is that? It’s due to the capacity of that other person. They cannot provide the same level of commitment or investment into another. What is interesting, though, is that most make the effort to treat others well but they fail to treat themselves well. If you observe their behaviors, you’ll notice that something is amiss. It is either with their appearance, their health or their emotional state. What we don’t realize is that it often stems from unforgiveness, not just towards another but towards themselves.

When we don’t forgive ourselves, we basically do not treat the person we are so intimate with well. We short change the one person we spend all of our time with. In Luke 6:27-37 Jesus talks about how we should treat our enemies. Ahem….yes it is with love. Another hard pill to swallow but if you really think about it, that saying kill them with kindness really does work. What most people miss though is a key thing Jesus still wants to bring across in our present day. Most folks gloss over it because they truly do not dig the love your enemy part. Hidden within that passage is a superb nugget. It says that the treatment of others should be based on the measurement of how you and I want to be treated.

How do you want to be treated?

You want to be treated with respect, with love, with honor, with kindness, with consideration, etc. We all do. These are normal wants and expectations. How many of us treat ourselves that way? We are often critical, discouraged and disappointed with ourselves. This is due to bad choices or bad breaks. Throw in the number of times stuff has happened to us and like robots, we have been conditioned to be discouraged or disappointed with that person we live intimately with each moment, each minute and each second.

Yes, we are talking about that that person that looks back at you when you look in the mirror and although you don’t show people your internal disgust, it does reside there quietly. There are many reasons we get disgusted with ourselves. Disgusted is a strong word isn’t it? I could use the word dislike if it will make you feel better but I think many of us are past the dislike stage. It’s easier to forgive something when it’s in the dislike stage. When we harbor unforgiveness towards ourselves, it brings the passive dislike into active disgust that lays dormant and rears its ugly head when a trigger rouses it from its slumber. People learn to live with it because the arousal is periodical and they learn to deal with it. They learn to numb it.

People numb unforgiveness towards self with food, with alcohol, with sex and keeping busy (to name a few). It is easier to numb than to face it, forgive it and move on. All these steps are hard because they require change and change is not something anyone readily embraces. So basically, we rather treat others well but treat ourselves differently. If that is the case, then here is a loaded question. How can you do for others the way you want things to be done for you if you are not treating yourself well? Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?