Why do we struggle to forgive some people? I find most people easy to forgive, except people who got close to me and then wounded me badly. If I knew these people for a long time, or if I still have to relate to them, I struggle with forgiving them more than I do forgiving others. Forgiveness becomes most difficult when I have misconceptions about what forgiving people means too. So let’s unravel the misconceptions about forgiveness and examine situations where forgiveness truly takes much more time and emotional work.
Forgiving people does not mean we forget what they have done; that is a myth. This is why it is so much harder to forgive them. We keep remembering the results of their offense. The term “Forgive and forget” is not a Biblical command, as some people try to trick us into believing (so they can hurt us again.) Only God can always “forget our sins,” as he confirms in Isaiah 43:23, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Godly people still remember what abusers did to them long after they forgave. Godly Joseph, of the Old Testament, reminded his brothers of their sin but also of his forgiveness in Genesis 50:18-20, “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” Some offenses cannot be forgotten, because they radically alter our lives, the way Joseph’s ten brothers’ betrayal did. When Joseph reminded his brothers he forgave them, he was living in a totally different country (Egypt) because his brothers sold him to slave traders who were traveling there. Joseph could not forget what his brothers did to him in Canaan, because Joseph did not get to live there anymore, due to his brothers’ actions.
This is true in our lives with extreme betrayals. We might be divorced from a spouse we loved, or out of a good job we deserved, and more. Everyday we have to live with the reality we no longer have that status (married, at a good job, etc.) Our loss reminds us, daily, of the one who betrayed us. If someone betrayed us based upon a family relationship (especially a parent or sibling), we suffer from what that person failed to nurture in us. People who grow up without a nurturing mother or father (or both) have real gaps in their emotional makeup. Often these people fall into bad or even abusive relationships (whether in a career with a partner or marriage or a close friendship.) The abused or neglected people are not fools or stupid. They don’t mean to enter into bad relationships. But the familiarity with neglect or abuse alters what they think is normal in a relationship. They don’t consciously choose neglectful or abusive people, but they do so, nonetheless.
As a result, not only does the hurt person lack a loving family bond, she also ends up in a neglectful or even abusive relationship after her childhood or young adulthood. The pain and suffering continues. God can wake up a hurt person to realize the lies she was believing. God can connect her to a good church and Bible study group where she can better understand God’s good plan for her life and his love. But it may take time for her to truly understand and trust God’s love and then alter the current, bad relationship or cut if off if the harsh person will not stop doing wrong.
The person suffering now has more pain and betrayal to forgive. Now she has to take her old sorrow over the family member to God, and now add the new sorrow over the current person. The pain has doubled, hence forgiveness takes more effort.
So when someone has not fulfilled his or her role in the hurt person’s life, the pain of neglect hounds the victim’s heart. She is aware of all the normal, reasonable things this family member did not offer, whether that is affection, respect, patience, and any of the other qualities that relationship lacked. We are forced to “parent” ourselves, or nurture ourselves. We have to do the work someone else (like a parent) should have done. We cannot literally “parent” ourselves, but we do comfort ourselves, talk aloud to figure out our feelings, beliefs, hopes and dreams. We bring all of this to God. He truly “parents” us, but we have to work this out with him, instead of the parent who should have modeled it to us. If that parent didn’t draw out all these thoughts and feelings, we have to figure them out on our own.
The phrase, “finding yourself,” does not need to be selfish. God made us unique, a one-of-a-kind person. We differ from others and need to understand ourselves, our hopes, dreams, fears, strengths and weaknesses. We need to figure out our God-given personality. We need to know ourselves so we can comfortably interact with all the different people. These are not selfish drives but essential components in the growing up experience. These are steps needed to become a mature, calm and content person.
Often when we see an adult who is not mature, perhaps he or she is cruel, selfish, unstable, overly needy or in any other way “very wrong,” it is because that person did not have a stable parent to guide him or her into maturity. This does not excuse wrong behavior, but this truth can help us better understand those difficult people and have mercy, even when we may need to avoid them if they are mean as well as unrepentant. And of course, mental disorders and extreme sickness can also cause some of those behaviors.
For us, the survivors, we are healing and now we have to do the work our family members (usually parents) neglected to do. This is why offenses in these relationships are so very much harder to forgive. There is so much work we have to do, to heal and build ourselves up in the Lord. God does not give us an instant fix, nor does God lack mercy when he expects us to heal. In the healing process, we draw close to other hurting people. We help each other, and we give the gift of healing we eventually learn, to those who are just recognizing their need to heal. God uses our pain to help others. God also uses our pain to make us compassionate, spiritually deep and more in love with Him.
Contrast this with very blessed people who grew up in loving, supportive homes and may even have loving spouses. They are not as kind or deep. At least I found this to be true. I have encountered those “blessed people,” and they were sometimes unkind, and not as wise as those who suffered. Sometimes they were judgmental and harsh. The people who lead such easy lives often do not have the spiritual depth as those who suffered. Yet, getting back to suffering, it still hurts terribly and is so much harder to forgive those who caused it the most deeply. But if we can look at the good this suffering causes in us, the depth in God’s love, we may find forgiving easier.
Let’s look at more misconceptions that hinder our healing in forgiving. Forgiving someone does not condone his or her abuse. We still acknowledge the person wronged us as Joseph did in Genesis 50. Our forgiveness does not give the offender freedom from retribution. A divorcing husband may still have to pay alimony to the wife who forgives him. A reckless driver might have to pay for damages. A criminal will still need to go to jail. Our forgiveness means we no longer hate this person or wish they burn in Hell. We let God do the spiritual punishing, even while we hold the perpetrator responsible for physical damages (alimony, jail time, etc.)
Next, forgiveness does not mean we have to reconcile. Some people will continue to do bad things. They might not even be truly sorry nor repent of what they did. We should not reconcile with those people, even if they demand we reconcile. Proverbs 22:24 says, “Do not make friends with an angry man. Do not associate with a hot tempered man,” which means those who are not truly sorry and do not want to stop the abuse they use with their temper. Matt. 18: 17 tells us what to do when we confront a brother who has hurt us badly and he will not repent: “If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” The Bible confirms we do not have to continue to accept abuse from people who claim to be our Christian friends but neither admit they hurt us nor stop doing so. Yet those very people may take Bible verses out of context and try to force us to reconcile. Instead, we can stand on the true word of God and say, “No.”
If we believed any of the myths about forgiveness, we must release them. Yet we may feel guilty about letting go of those lies, especially when accusers tell us to feel guilty. Even while we do the right thing, we may feel their guilt and our own guilt from our past beliefs that we deserved bad treatment. This also makes forgiving the offenders harder. We carry so much pain.
This post is not a comprehensive list of all the ways that forgiveness is hard, but I pray it has given you some ideas about any areas that are hard for you. We must be patient with ourselves, because God is patient. He knows it takes us time to forgive. Notice, in the story of Joseph, he had approximately 13 years to forgive his brothers before he had to see them again. For some of us, we do not get the luxury of being away from the abuser for that much time. This also makes forgiving that person much harder. So please be gentle with yourself if you still feel anger towards an abuser. Your anger is not a lack of forgiveness. It might be your righteous anger against a sin someone should not have committed against you. God feels that righteous anger too, and God is perfect and sinless. Remember Jesus felt anger and yet never sinned (feel free to look these up: Mark3:1-6, Mark11:15, John2:15-17, Psalm2:12.) Your anger is often not a lack of forgiveness. These are two different issues. Some tell us the myth, that anger means you did not forgive, but it is only another lie–don’t believe it.
Even when we sense we do hold a grudge (or whatever we call not forgiving others) we can call out to God to soften our hearts. He can help us to forgive others. But the pain may continue for a long time. And at times our anger may flare up again, and we have to tell God, in case any unforgiveness rises up in our hearts too. God can help us to forgive, but it may be a long process in which we have to rely on God often. This does not make us evil. It just makes us hurting and imperfect people who have been wounded badly. But that also makes us perfect candidates for God’s mercy. He loves us dearly.
I pray we have blessed you with this post, and you will come back next week for another post.