By Jerry Cavanaugh
Now the wrongs and hurts we have suffered may not be to the extent of those Desmond Tutu was involved with, but the instinct to retaliate is still there. Get even. Tit for tat. Give as good as they can send. We may suppress that urge but it still takes its toll.
We remain locked in our pain and resentment and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom. Until we can forgive the person who wronged us, we remain in that person’s control. When we forgive, we take back control of our own feelings. We don’t forgive for others. We forgive for ourselves. Forgiveness, in other words, is the best form of self-interest.
It can be hard to forgive. Many of us may refuse to forgive because of fear:
We may fear losing the energy that anger produces, if that is what keeps us going.
We may fear that if we forgive the person who wronged us, he or she will be free to hurt us again.
We may expect too much of someone in our lives and fear that if we forgive their flaws they won’t live up to our expectations.
Holding an offence against another person allows us to imagine ourselves superior and we fear losing that image.
Forgiving might be easier if we consider what forgiveness is not:
- It is NOT condoning the behaviour. To forgive is not saying, “What you did is okay.” It’s saying, “The consequences of your behaviour belong to God, not to me.”
- It is NOT forgetting what happened. It would be unwise to erase from our mind some of the wrongs done to us. If we did, we’d never learn from experience and risk walking right back into the same situation. What we can hope to eventually forget are the bad memories and feelings.
- it is NOT restoring trust in the person. Trust is earned. To blindly trust someone who has hurt us would be naive. We can forgive people the wrong they have done without issuing an open invitation to do it again.
- It is NOT agreeing to reconcile. Forgiveness is necessary for reconciliation, but reconciliation is not necessarily the goal of forgiveness. Reconciliation may not be a good idea if the other person is unrepentant or unwilling.
- It is NOT easy to forgive. When we suffer from loss or harm of some kind, forgiving may seem too overwhelming to even consider. How do we forgive if there has been no apology or explanation for why someone hurt us so? How can we think of forgiving when we feel the person has done nothing to deserve our forgiveness? Archbishop Tutu says, “It is best to break our forgiving down into bite sized pieces and begin from wherever we are standing.
Name our hurts until they no longer pierce our hearts and grant forgiveness when we are ready to let go of a past that cannot be changed.”
I would like to finish by sharing a quote from Archbishop Tutu’s introduction to his book.
“I would like to share with you two simple truths: There is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one undeserving of forgiveness.
When you can see and understand that we are all bound to one another – whether by birth, by circumstance, or simply by our shared humanity – then you will know this to be true. There have been times when each and every one of us has needed to forgive. There have been times when each and every one of us has needed to be forgiven. And there will be many times again. In our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.”
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