How can you forgive anyone when you refuse to remember what you are forgiving them for? I can tell you by personal experience, you can't. You must look the hurt or wrong in the face, fully understanding how it has affected you, even destroyed you on some levels, then forgive. This kind of forgiveness is challenging. Without thought process, forgiving is easy, that is, until you remember.
I shut out many years of wrongs and pain, only to find them flooding back on me as soon as I thought about it. There was no closure for any of it, only refusing to think about it. So now I choose to remember.
I remember the betrayals, unfaithfulness, lies and verbal hurts. After I remembered, I wept (still do when another "un-thought about" situation rears it's ugly head). I now choose to feel the pain, the anger, the hurt that I should have let myself feel at the time. Maybe things would have turned out differently, I don't know. I didn't because I was such a "woman of God". Ha! I was an ostrich with her head in the sand spouting Bible verses to shut out the pain. What happens is when you shut out the pain, you shut out other feelings as well. You are essentially the walking dead. No feelings, no love, no nothing. But God in His infinite mercy and goodness, brought a mirror to me in the form of a man. I finally saw myself and my situation in another's eyes, and my walls that I'd built over the entirety of life, came tumbling down. Leaving me emotionally and spiritually naked. I re-lived those events that had caused me to decide that thinking was an un-wise activity. I hurt. I cried. I yelled - then I left.
I didn't yell at anyone out loud much, I wasn't quite there. But I yelled and screamed on the inside as I saw how I had diminished myself in my own eyes by accepting the treatment I received. That is not forgiveness, that is acquiescence. Looks the same from the outside but poisons the inside.
So I choose to forgive every hurt and wrong that comes up to be felt. It may take a while to "feel" forgiveness, but I forgive.
Now - I move on.
I have a man who loves me for who I am. Who doesn't want to change me. Who I am enough for. A man with whom I have had more peace, joy and happiness with in the last 2 months, than I'd experienced in the previous 33 years. Someone who listens and asks questions, someone with whom I can share my deep secrets and not fear being exposed.
I now know life and love are so much simpler than I thought. I always tried to make them some complicated religious experience so only the wise and learned could walk in.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Mt. 11:28-30If your burden isn't light and your load isn't easy, it isn't from the Lord.
As I said in my previous blog, I don't know how God works this all out, but he does. I think he loves making us take a look at the paradigms that we have allowed to define us and showing us how they don't work. Any paradigm other than Jesus, and him crucified, is a wrong one. So how can I who am seemingly living "in sin", and adultery be at peace with my Lord? Here's how I look at it:
My own righteousness is and always has been and always will be, filthy rags. So what I do or don't do has no effect on my righteousness. I have the righteousness of Christ over me. I am not a hypocrite, I never lied to anyone about what I was doing. I purposefully left my husband (mentally before bodily, because it was my house too), before I was joined with my new husband. Yes, I said husband. Marriage is a commitment, and I have never made a bigger commitment than the one we made with each other. It cost us everything. We both knew the cost, and decided it was worth it. Those who truly love and care for me will eventually accept me in my new circumstances. Yes, the cost was shared by my family too, even though they had no say in the matter. But that is what a family is about. They shared in the pain and joy of many other decisions placed on them and decisions they placed on me. Love covers over a multitude of sins. Sam and I will marry legally as soon as we can, we think that is important. In the meantime, I have chosen inner peace and outer chaos, over inner chaos and outer peace.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her...At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left" John 8:7-9
1 comment:
Pam you are one brave woman. I love you dearly.
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