Forgiveness

From the book I am reading, "Calm My Anxious Heart" :



"Bitterness seeps into the basement of our lives like run-off from a broken sewer pipe. Every form of ugliness begins to float to the surface of those murky waters: prejudice and profanity, suspicion and hate, cruelty and cynicism. There is no torment like the inner torment of bitterness, which is the by-product of an unforgiving spirit. It refuses to be soothed, it refuses to be healed, it refuses to forget. There is no prison more damaging than the bars of bitterness that will not let the battle end.



Despite its evils, bitterness holds many of us captives. Forgiveness is the only escape route out of this prison."





This section really struck me, in regards to my relationship with two people- my husband and a friend. I won't go into the husband story here, but both situations dealt with ways in which I had been hurt by the other person, and they had asked forgiveness. I had "forgiven" them, but after reading this, I realized I had not truly let go. I still had an inch or so of bitterness stinking up the basement of my soul.



The author talks about how we are called to forgive, and how it is not merely an emotional response, but it is a conscious decision to do when we don't feel like it. It reminds me of my senior quote, "To love is, therefore, essentially to give oneself to others. Far from being an instinctive inclination, love is a conscious decision of the will to go towards others. To be able to love truly, it is necessary to do so gratuitously, to love to the end. This dispossession of oneself - a long and demanding task - is exhausting and exalting. It is the source of balance. It is the secret of happiness." Pope John Paul II.

She also says, " Going beyond forgiveness is sometimes more difficult than the initial act of forgiving. We think, I'll forgive because God told me I had to. But I'm staying away from her from now on! " Um, yes this is exactly what I had thought about this friend. And although I cannot completely avoid her because of life circumstances, I do truly feel like this was a "toxic friendship" and that I have been much healthier without her as such a big part of my life. And yet, after reading this, I realized that maybe that as the author suggested, I do need to still try to do acts of love and to continue to pray for her.

So this week a mutual friend invited me to a surprise birthday lunch for her. I really did not want to go. If I went, I'd need to use the little cash I had been saving up from selling things on craigslist and I had been saving it for something I wanted from Target to spruce up the living room. Sigh. Maybe I wouldn't be able to get a babysitter. But my sister said yes. I decided that this would be one of those acts of love. So I went. And then while at lunch, one of the ladies decided we should go around and say one thing we really liked about this friend. Surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as I thought to say that positive thing, because really this person does have a lot of good things about her. It was good for me to speak a good word about her, even TO her. I think it meant a lot to her that I came because she came up to me later to thank me for coming. In her apology email long ago, she had expressed a fear of losing my friendship as she'd done by offending another (mutual friend) before me. I still don't think I can ever be close friends again, and I don't even think she wants that either, but I am glad that I felt myself take a step towards cleaning out that basement leak. Like a plunger on the drainhole.

Have you ever had to forgive? Have you found it harder to forget? What is that quote about a woman's memory???