Shifting Slowly

When you forgive someone, you don’t forgive with conditions. You don’t forgive and say, I forgive you if you…
That’s not how forgiveness works. Imagine God forgiving us only if we did and behaved a certain way. Imagine Him not forgiving us until we did what he asked of us. Of course, there are morals to follow. Morals that don’t need to be written on two blocks of stone and sent fetched down from a mountain. We know those morals. Treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. Don’t kill. Don’t abuse. Don’t cheat and lie. These are just a few things we all know, on the surface of our hearts, that we do not do. And then there is deep heart knowing’s we do not do.
Forgiveness is more for your healing and growth than it is for the person you’re forgiving. All you can hope after you forgive is that the behavior will never be repeated again. You can tell them how it made you feel, how they hurt you, you can even tell them to never do it again, but it’s on them, not on you.
However, forgiveness does not also mean that once you’ve forgiven, that person is allowed in your life or near you again. Maybe what they did was so horrendous and goes against your own morals that you can’t have them near you. Maybe their energy is so toxic that you can’t breathe or be true to yourself around them.
Forgiving someone is hoping that through the forgiveness they are able to see God through you. They are able to see that although they’ve done wrong towards you that you were still able to forgive them and hopefully through that, they can change their behavior and not take advantage of your forgiveness.
There were many in my life that took my laid back attitude and quick forgiveness as a means to mistreat me over and over and never own their faults. This was partially my fault too in that I allowed them back into my life over and over. I was just hoping that me forgiving them, telling them how they made me feel and how they hurt me would change their behavior but it didn’t. They hadn’t been able to see God through me. They only saw black and white, who they assumed was right and wrong and they never once asked themselves, “Is it me? Did I do this?”
Often times in the heat of an argument we just want to get our points across. We want to yell all the things that will hurt another person and tell them exactly who we think they are. Afterward, we can go on for a while still thinking we’re right. We are taught that being right transcends love. That it transcends forgiving someone. That it transcends owning up to your hurtful words. This is called the ego. All those times we tell ourselves we are right, we are so right, I said and meant all those things and will say them again, that is all ego. Ego is fear of admitting our faults and admitting we were wrong.
Ego is admitting anything that we fear to admit. Ego = Fear and no one likes fear. When the ego is around there is no such thing as truth and love and vulnerability. All those things get tossed out the window. And we sit with our ego and talk to them and our egos pat us on the back and say, “Job well done. You were so right! Who cares that just a few days ago the two of you were laughing and having a good time and they are your best friend, your lover, your mom, your sibling, or anyone else you vowed to love and be there for and today you fought and said things you never thought could come out of your mouth. You were right! Remember that. High five! Right on! Now let us see what else we can do to hurt them. Oh, I know, let’s post a meme that is not outright calling them out but they’ll know it’s about them and anger them more. Or let’s keep this all bottled up and not talk to them for days, weeks, months and shit, years! You were right! High five again. Oh, I know, let’s get anyone we can on our side. Let’s call someone, tell them what happened, so they know who’s side to take.” And this can go on for what seems like forever and in this forever we can spiral into this hole of who’s right and wrong and who’s going to win this. We are always looking to win. We never want to be the one that looks “weak” by listening to what our hearts are truly asking us to say or do.
Then it gets quiet. We remember a memory we had with this person, a good time or we see their face as we scroll through social media or we truly just miss them for a split second and ego is just about to say something and we tell it to shut the fuck up. Give us time to think. And we listen, in the quiet, we listen to our hearts beating and we shut our minds off and we take the path from our brain, down our face, passed our mouth, down through our throat and right into our heart and we listen. This is where our truths lie. Where the things most vulnerable and real to us speak and we hear it tell us, “Was it worth it? Is everything you said or did worth it? Is it worth losing them? Is it worth losing you? How about God, what would he think? Doesn’t he have your back always? Imagine he didn’t? Go, be real, lean in, take this feeling, the stuff that this heart is speaking to you about now and run with it. Sure, it may be scary, sure you may get laughed at or told no, go away, I’m not ready. But remember, forgiveness is your truth. It’s our truth. It’s the truth we were born with and if you don’t stay true to yourself you’ll lose yourself to things and people and it’ll be a long road back home. Don’t take that road. Use that time instead to make more memories, to laugh more, to love more. Go. Go now and forgive. It’s what we were created to do- love and forgive and in these things we grow.