LOAF

…and Jesus said, (paraphrasing), “Love One Another and Forgive!” This command is perhaps the hardest to live out! Love one another. Is it love as a feeling—or an action?

Love as feeling can be cushy and gushy full of big red hearts and yellow PEEPS. Love as feeling can be true admiration and tenderness of heart, not to mention attraction. Love as feeling is warm and pleasurable, finding the good in the other, and yourself.

Love in action can mean “tough love” through a family intervention for a practicing alcoholic; love in action admonishes and guides your brother or sister who is headed down the wrong road; love in action means discipline, no, not just disciplining, but putting in the time & effort to excel.

Kinda get “Love one another”—but to forgive is a whole different ball game!

Pain/ betrayal/ humiliation/ abuse/ manipulation/ molestation…all gain momentum in repetition and intensity and cruelty refrain, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” just doesn’t cut it many times. That’s if one has even taken responsibility or admitted guilt. Many times it’s denial and deceit and discounting, not discussion that fills the air with ugly silent drama-scripts, killing any possibility for Truth and when one gets caught red-handed, the excuses arise like the sun ablaze sometimes, in audacity, acting like it never happened at all, or that you’re to blame.

I just heard today that not forgiving JUST HURTS YOU because the other probably never even knows that they hurt you. Sure, molest a child and the guy never even knows he hurt somebody? But sometimes, in a more minor sense, it’s true—someone hurts our feelings and has no consciousness of the offense—until you enlighten them…and usually, we don’t, out of embarrassment or pride or vulnerability

we must  FORG(iv)E ahead on a path through our own humiliation and vulnerabilities to see what part we played in a situation (if any) to see how we may have been complicate to or unaware of acts that hurt.

“But they did it to me—I didn’t do anything?” often true, but you may have played a small role…Finally, it comes down to—someone has hurt us—and we forgive them! Really? It’s that simple?…or is it? What about all the residual angst and depression and agony and gut-wrenching pain that may have gone on for months or even years…and we just forgive?—it’s that easy? They say FAITH is a gift from God…I would have to say that FORGIVENESS is equally a gift from the Creator, and just as consequential, at that, because, without forgiveness, we have a world of hateful people and unreconciled grievances.

GOD, GIVE ME THIS GIFT OF FORGIVENESS so I can let go of the pain and disappointment…I can’t do it alone…I need Divine Intervention to be able to set my heart free and “walk in the land of the living.” Forgiveness is not my forte. A clenched fist in my heart seems more natural when I’ve been pummeled by life’s indignities—just as You, God, help me Love One Another, I need You to help me to Forgive. Your Grace tells me it means opening up my heart to see how the other may have been mistreated in their past to be able to engage in the insensitivity and unawareness to hurt me so deeply; to see how we are ALL broken, in some way; that some of us are just broken more—and more often—so they lash out.

I also heard today that HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE; then, if I do not forgive, I become one of those HURT PEOPLE, and just pass it on. Lord, help me build relationships, not tear them down…and if forgiveness is a foundation to that building, help me dig deep and secure the base, for I want to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem! Forgive—give ‘em a break, just let go, and envision how you may be doing something similar to someone else. I think I remember Jesus once or twice saying, “Forgive, as you have been forgiven.” That says it all for me…for many people, and God, have forgiven me—even when I didn’t know it, when    I have been unaware of my hurting actions. So why must I hold back? But it’s so HARD when you really feel you got abused or misled, or handled in a very direspectul manner. It’s so HARD!

But I must rely on that Divine Intervention and let it go. Start out by saying, “I forgive you,” even if you don’t mean it at first. God will take that weak intention and make cable of it—steel cable-strong to pull together the Love in the hearts of the broken. I’ve gotta believe—I DO believe—God can do this for me—in me. And, in time, I will learn to truly and urgently forgive. This is a Grace I look forward to!

by Rich Melcher