Photo by: Juliet Harrison | julietrharrisonphotography.com
In some ways, when another person, for nearly any reason,
damages me I am quick to forgive. I do aim at thinking the best of others.
People mess up, people can be hurtful and to love others as we love ourselves,
forgiveness comes from a good place of love. If you truly care about someone,
your deepest desire is to forgive, heal the relationship and move to a higher
level of intimacy within that relationship. Dealing with offenses openly and
honestly is an investment in the relationship. I am not speaking about nit
picking every little thing, because love is patient. I am speaking to the
greater offenses that cause us to pull back from someone. It creates a kind of
bruise and when we are with that person, they brush up against the bruise. If
we don’t talk about it, it gets worse, we can harbor ill feelings, and it comes
out of us in unexpected and ugly ways that are not from a place of love.
Talking about these feelings is harder with people we love.
It is uncomfortable and feels like a lot of work. The very reason it is
uncomfortable is because we DO love them. If we did not care, we would not be
in pain and we would just let the offensive behavior slough off. But, when we
are invested in a meaningful relationship, we need to go to dangerous places to
create an even deeper relationship. American’s, by our very culture don’t want
to feel pain. But, sometimes pain is good.
Americans want to take a pill, ignore, or stuff feelings,
because we have been conditioned to think that feelings, and in particular painful
feelings are to be avoided at all cost. Pain is a great teacher and can be a
great healer. Sometimes, even embracing the reality of our pain is a very
healing experience. We are supposed to feel a full range in our emotional
repertoire. There is a difference in feeling pain honestly and wallowing in it
as a lifestyle.
One of my issues is I have to forgive and forgive over and
over and with each offense it becomes more of a burden and less of an act of
love, realizing people, including myself either intentionally or
unintentionally do something to harm another. Some people in our lives are like porcupines. Every time we
are around them, we get a quill in our skin. My mother is one such person.
Sadly, my mother is mentally unstable. She lacks the ability to either feel
love or give love. And worse than that, she has a very dark side that provokes
and prods for her own satisfaction. That is one side of my mother. Then there
is my mother that is a delight and has a child like quality. Problem is, you never know whom you are
going to get. And mostly it is the wicked side of her borderline personality
disorder.
When someone is either emotionally unavailable or more like
a person who resembles a minefield, it makes forgiveness such a test. I want to
respect and love my mother. And mainly, I do. I work hard to have any kind of
relationship with her. I work very hard. It goes unappreciated and frankly has
put me in many bad situations. But, I don’t expect a blind man to see. I don’t
expect a deaf man to hear. I have to change my expectations and know that my
mother is incapable of emotion in any kind of a healthy way. So, I am forced to
aim at love and hope that love does cover a multitude of sin. I am honest with
her on some offenses. I don’t pretend. When the offense gets too much and I
cannot respond with a heart of love, I leave and spend some time away. Then I
enter a place where I chose to confront her or let it go. It depends on the
offense, the consistency of the offense and the depth of the offense. And I do
not expect her to understand, but I confront for my own ability to show people
I love where they have damaged me and try to restore the relationship.
It is not easy. I have been at this for 50 years. It never
gets much better. But it is a good work of love. I have to at times wear two
faces. They are both my faces, but each one has their place in this journey of
forgiveness. Each one is a tool to feel delight, compassion and love for the
totally unlovable. It is a work of the spirit. It is a work of the divine and I
do not possess this kind of ability, so I lean on the One who does.
There is a verse in a song that is meaningful to me. It is
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. One verse reads:
“Well, maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who out drew ya
It’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah"
But, it is in this brokenness that God does his best work in
me.
