Forgiveness Is The Attribute Of The Strong

There was an article that was widely read and shared online this last week about a man in his 30’s who had an old bully from his past reach out to him on Facebook and apologize for the unkind behavior from years before. I think it hit home with a lot of us because there are past wrongs that we would like to apologize for, or because we wish someone would apologize to us.

 I ran into an ex-boyfriend this week. I knew I was going to see him – it was a wedding reception for a mutual friend. I spent extra time getting ready, asked a friend to go with me so I didn’t have to stand alone in the line, and made sure to go up and say hello before I left (because heaven forbid he should know that’s it’s difficult for me to interact with him). I put a lot of thought and care into everything, and spent the rest of the night thinking about us and everything that had happened. On the other hand, I’m sure the interaction and my presence were wholly insignificant to him.

Why is that? Perhaps because I feel wronged by the way he treated me, and I haven’t quite forgiven him.

Forgiveness is such an interesting concept. Frequently, forgiveness has no outward manifestations. There’s no physical act to perform, no set of instructions to follow. Except in very extreme circumstances, you can’t tell from looking at a person if they are carrying a grudge. “The folly of rehashing long-past hurts does not bring happiness.” (James E. Faust) However, it has such an intense impact on our emotional and spiritual health that it can hold us back in every positive pursuit, or set us free.

 Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who hid Jews during World War II. She spent years in a concentration camp, saw unspeakable evil, lost her sister and her father to the cruelty of the Nazi’s, and endured all of it because a neighbor suspected her family and turned them over to the police. If there was anyone who had the “right” to feel slighted and wronged, it was her. And yet she dedicated her life to talking about forgiveness and love. Her preaching was brought to a true test when, after a speech, she was approached by one of the very guards who had terrorized her in Ravensbruck.

In her own words:

““Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’

“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.

“‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’

“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’

“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then.”

Why is forgiveness so important? Dr. Sidney Simon said, “Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. It is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves.” We have limited strength, energy, intellect and time. Such finite resources as these are precious, and we choose every day how we will use them. We can either utilize them to complain, feel sorry for ourselves, and let bitter feelings poison every moment, or we use them to uplift, serve and find beauty.

The bottom line is, it’s my choice. If I can’t forgive, it’s not actually hurting anyone but myself. In fact, no one else would even know. It’s difficult, it takes time, it takes effort, but it can free me from spinning my wheels. It can even free me from insecurity, pain and anxiety. “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” (Khaled Hosseini)