Forgiveness - Why It's All About You

I've never been great at this whole, "forgiveness" thing. There's been plenty of opportunity to practice, but I've never really gotten a hold of it. It's like algebra for me—two hours after I had already flunked the test, the concept just dawned on me, and I finally understood. Too late.

Fortunately, the art if forgiveness is not algebra. The tests are always open to retake anytime, as many times as you need. Because the tests never end.

See, people have this weird notion that forgiveness means weakness, or submission. It means you've let the people who hurt you off the hook, that you're going to let them go to hurt you again. It means you won't stand up and pursue justice for yourself. Even Christians such as myself often take the idea of forgiveness for granted, and misunderstand what it truly means.

Because, it's not quite that simple. I've come to the realization lately that forgiveness isn't about the person who hurt you. It's not something you do for their sake. After all, you may look in their eyes and tell them that you forgive them, and they may take it or leave it. You can't control what they do next.

I have a cousin like that. The sort who just always knows better than you do, maybe just because they are slightly older. I don't think he's ever meant to be hurtful to me in that way; but all through my late teens and into college, he had a habit of scoffing at all my ideas and all the opportunities I had ahead of me, and telling me not to get my hopes too high. There were too many people, way more skilled and in far bigger numbers, waiting in line ahead of me. That I was never going to get as far in the real world as I liked to think.

I'm sure he just didn't want to see his optimistic little cousin crash and burn against a wall, but that wasn't how it felt. It wounded me deeply; and much of my perseverance and success in those years was fueled by spite. I didn't want to waste my energy trying to offer him my forgiveness, because I knew he wasn't sorry, and that he wouldn't accept it.

I now know that forgiveness doesn't work that way. It's not something you offer your transgressors on a platter, like a desperate, furtive tribute to an indifferent god. It's not about them at all, really.

Forgiveness is about the only aspect of your hurt you can control:

You, yourself.

It starts in your own heart, a decision you make each and every day. And the first step, I think, is to forgive yourself for your hurt. For allowing it to happen in the first place, perhaps. For how you may appear to others because of it. For having to let go if something that feels to sinfully good, which you know is killing you.

To forgive yourself is to let go of your anger with yourself. Only then can you let go of your anger with others.

Over the years, I've stopped feeling so spiteful toward my cousin; but if you asked if that meant I had forgiven him completely, I would have said no. I still wasn't sure how to. I thought was something that could only be given if someone wanted it. I thought it was something I would have to bear for both of us, bottled up and going to waste in my soul, but impossible to forget. Impossible to let go of. Because it was my own fault for being so sensitive in the first place.

See what I mean?

It's not about letting the other person off the hook, but about you, letting yourself off the hook. It's not about being a doormat, letting other people walk all over you; it's about standing tall at the doorway, and ushering those people out of your life—or maybe back into it. It's not being too weak to stand up for yourself, but being brave enough to look delicious misery in the eye and deciding that you don't want or need it anymore.

Forgiveness is about you, choosing to be free, learning to love yourself again, so that you can love others in turn.