This one was rough, and healing didn't come easy. I was angry, at a lot of people, but specifically at the one lady from the church. For a long time I wouldn't even say her name, and thinking about her just made my blood boil. Her attack had been direct, intentional, and personal, and it stung. I was angry at the fact that I had no help at the church. I was angry with the two pastors who had met with me after I left the church, and I was angry with the people who had promised to help me but hadn't.
I began to ignore phone calls and text messages. I played through conversations I'd like to have, things I'd like to say in my head, and looking back, I'm glad I was never in a position where I could have said any of these things. It would have done a lot of damage, and it would have inflicted wounds on those who had wounded me. That's our go to reaction to a wound, strike back and wound them more painfully then they wounded us. The human side of me wanted to strike back, wanted to inflict wounds, but the part of me that is wanting to strive to be more like Jesus allowed me to at the very least hold my tongue. It led me to stay silent rather than speak, and I'm grateful that I responded that way.
This wound ate at me. It impacted me differently than the wrestling wound. That one made me withdraw, silently moping and feeling sorry for myself, this one made me want to go on the offensive. It began to consume me, but if I'm honest, I have to admit that I liked being angry. I didn't want to forgive these people, I wanted to hurt them as they had hurt me. It wasn't a healthy response, but it was the easy one. It was easier to to be angry with people than to pray for those who hurt me. It was easier to desire to inflict wounds than offer forgiveness. As I'm writing this my mind keeps thinking Yoda's words in Phantom Menace "Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."
The longer I stayed angry, the more I moved towards hating people, and more hatred built up, the less love I had. The less you can love, the more you suffer. Hollywood writers are actually pretty brilliant, or they just have fantastic time to look stuff up and be creative, one or the other.
Enter the wisdom of Frozen, as the dad of two little girls I have seen this movie way too many times. I even did the stupid thing of putting the sound track on my phone so they can listen to it in the car (I did something even stupider this past week and bought Moana for them because it was on sale, no idea why I put myself through this stuff). I digress, the song every parent with a child under 10 has heard ad infinitum tells to very simply let it go. Don't let the past hold you back anymore, let it stay in the past. Turn away from anger and slam the door of unforgiveness. Let it go.
Almost three years ago everything fell apart for me. I began to spend late nights crying out to God, asking Him what I needed to do, and I very clearly remember Him saying "Forgive ..." (I'm not going to share the name of the woman at the church but God used her name and told me to forgive her). It wasn't an easy thing to do, but I knew that this was a step that I had to take to move towards the healing I was seeking and needing. For the first time in three years, alone in my living room I said her name after the words "I forgive". I wrote it out in my journal, along with other names of people involved in the whole process, and began to let go of anger to embrace forgiveness. It's amazing how freeing this process is.
The process began that night, but God wasn't done. I had granted forgiveness, but there was one more step I needed to take to complete the healing of this wound...
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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