Have you ever suffered a painful and unjust experience at the hand of another that causes you sorrow, anger, resentment, and other emotional responses? Perhaps we all have and feel that those responses are justified considering the impact the event has had in our lives. It is possible we have uttered statements like, “I can never forgive them.” Or if we are feeling somewhat magnanimous, we might say, “I will forgive them, but I will never forget what they have done to me.” Perhaps when those statements are challenged by someone, we may justify ourselves by saying, “What do you expect? I’m only human!”
Sadly, the world around us seems to prize
resentment and nods approval when we harbor fractured forgiveness. Years ago, I
was attacked and stabbed in the back during the racial tensions of 1967. At the
time, I was doing a good thing as I escorted three coeds back to a college
campus. I did nothing to insight or merit the attack. The comments screamed at
me clearly reflected racial prejudice. It was a near death experience that left
me not only wounded physically but traumatized emotionally – a trauma that
lasted for years and even has some laten impacts now decades later.
Well-meaning friends affirmed my emotional responses where I clearly was not
only resentful but developed a hate-filled attitude toward those who had
attacked me. I said the appropriate words, “I forgive them.” Deeply embedded in
my heart however was a seed of hatred that I watered at times with resentment,
anger, and wishing I could somehow get back at those who had wronged me. The
events of that October night replayed over and over in my mind as I rehearsed
the attack and imagined a different outcome. I wanted the offenders to pay a
price for my pain that I remembered, embraced, and nurtured over the years. I
was not healing; I was harboring what I needed to let go.
While I practiced fractured forgiveness
that damaged me, those who caused my pain where not impacted. I had, as Chuck
Swindoll observed, “erected a monument of spite” in my mind. That monument only
stoked resentment and acted as an anchor that kept my emotions submerged in a
dark place where the light of healthy forgiveness was unable to shine. God
graciously caused me to realize decades later the folly of that fractured
forgiveness. One night after a reoccurring nightmare again woke me with a
racing heart and cold sweats, I began walking the floor of our darkened house
and cried out to God for release. In that darkness a rush of clarity brought the
words of Scripture to mind, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).
I then asked myself a question, “How has the Lord forgiven me?” To that
question another verse came to mind that recorded the words of Jesus as he hung
on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”
(Luke 23:34). If I was to be healed from fractured forgiveness, I needed to
forgive like Jesus. A commentator reminds me that on the cross “the silence is
broken, not by the cry of anguish or sigh of passionate complaint, but by words
of tenderest pity and intercession” (Ellicott's Commentary for English
Readers). Jesus chose not to focus upon the pain and injustice he was
enduring. He focused his love on the ones who inflicted the offenses. My prayer
for release and emotional healing began that night.
There have been many other times I have
been metaphorically “stabbed in the back.” Now my response is not to “erect a
monument of spite” toward the offender. I desire to manifest the words of One
who forgiveness perfectly, “Father forgive them.” I do not develop some mental
amnesia that ignores, denies, or casually dismisses a hurtful event. I aim to
nurture a proper attitude that promotes emotional healing for me in the hard
times. In doing so, hopefully, this creates an environment where one who is an
adversary can be transformed by a loving response.
I am reminded of the words of Amy
Carmichael, “If I say, ‘Yes, I forgive, but cannot forget,’ as though the God,
who twice a day washes all the sands on the shores of all the world, could not
wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
Forgiveness must not just be approached naturally; it must be approached
supernaturally. We must not harbor hurt and hatred. We must be healed and
restored by the gracious work of God in our lives.
