Forgiveness

Once more I’m awake long before what promises to be a glorious winter desert sunrise. The sky is again painted that fabulous indigo, decorated with its pinpoints of star-shine, and my breath crystallizes in the pure pre-dawn crispness as I exhale deeply staring up into the Heavens. Sometimes I desperately hate insomnia, but other times, like today, I comprehend it as a tender gift, an offering to join Him in a what is, at this moment, His still, peace-filled world where the only sounds are the soft song of wind chimes overhead and whisper of wind moving through the trees.

When He draws me from sleep this early, there is normally a request waiting, a gentle tapping at my soul: “There’s something you need to consider, something I’d like you to say.” And in the frosted early morning air, He reminds me of a single word but an enormous concept, something with which I have been wrestling for months: forgiveness.

It should be so easy, shouldn’t it? Two little words: “I’m sorry,” whether to be said or received. “I’m sorry,” there, not so bad. But it just doesn’t work that way. Those two precious little words get stuck somewhere between out hearts and our heads, and that logjam often breaks those same fragile hearts, fragments relationships, and severs deep connections; sometimes those can be restored, sometimes not. Sometimes they’re never meant to be, but forgiveness as an element of our character is always intended to be essential to who we are.

Diagnosing the problem isn’t the problem. Looking into the mirror, I recognize pride, pure and simple. I’d bet it’s the same for you (or sometimes we’re just not sorry or just not ready to accept the sorry). But when we are sorry or when we are too eviscerated or furious to accept the sorry, and we can’t find our way past that place, past that lump in our throats or our hearts, we are lost.

I realized a year ago that I had spent more than a decade blaming my first husband entirely for what had happened in our relationship, when I had never accepted my own responsibility. (Please understand I’m not excusing his behavior.) Writing a very long letter of apology – on personalized stationery as I am a Southern Belle, and the man would never, ever have believed the letter was from me otherwise – felt like swallowing ground glass. Mailing that letter then imagining him reading it felt – improbably – worse. Then, a few months ago, after almost nine years of silence, we spoke.

Anything could have been said in our 10-minute conversation. The only thing that needed be said, on his part, were those two precious words, but the man couldn’t manage to force them out. (Of course, there exists the possibility that he was not – is not -a bit sorry, but that defies my desire to believe he is, in his deepest heart, a basically decent human being.  So, I choose to ignore this interpretation.)   And I knew then that all the years I had spent in regret, in blaming him, in hating myself, was vain and pointless. After I hung up the phone, after my eyes had shed more tears than I ever believed left available for “us,” I realized that those 10 minutes were actually a gift from our Creator because only then could I let the relationship and the man go.

Then I thought about the nature of forgiveness (and grudges), and whether it is innate in us to shy away from it or whether it is something we acquire. Honestly, this shunning of forgiveness, this holding onto hurt, I believe we learn. I watch the little children I know, and they so very quickly offer up their hurts, so very quickly trust and love again even when the wounds come from those who are entrusted with their ultimate care. I wondered when exactly we gain the ability to bear grudges and refuse to offer our own apologies, when we decide that our hearts shouldn’t be vulnerable enough to let go of wounds, even deep ones. Pondering that thought left a deep desolation in my soul; I don’t want the answers to those questions.

Bottom line? Everything can be forgiven. Anything can be forgiven. Don’t read me wrong – I am not advocating continuing in any form of abusive relationship, but even abuse can be forgiven, must eventually be forgiven. You exit the relationship – must exit the relationship, but please don’t carry it with you. (No, the memories don’t leave, but the anger and pain do.) Forgiveness sets both the wounded and the “wound-er” free. And, really, why do we ever want to carry the cuts into the rest of our lives?

Loving someone, anyone, in any form, is a risk, a vulnerability. Loving is a guarantee that you are going to get hurt, maybe even shattered, and a promise that you will also inflict hurt, even if unintentionally. But loving, really loving, means that you’re also willing to forego the logjam between heart and head, to push down that lump in your throat, confront the pride that stares back at you in the mirror and both utter and receive those two hardest possible words: “I’m sorry.”

The Sonoran sky is now glowing a soft pinkish-orange, and I can offer a prayer of thanksgiving for my early morning (and definitely for coffee). You know, this concept of forgiving anything and everything isn’t mine?  Instead it belongs to Him, the one who drew me out into the pre-sunrise morning and whispered into my soul. Truthfully, I’m not great at forgiveness all the time, but I’m working on it, or rather He’s working on me. And for that I can again say an eternal, “Thank You, and Amen.”