Why Forgiveness Is Not Enough

Last Sunday I filled in for our Pastor (aka my dad) who is in Israel right now.  I decided to add to a sermon series he’d concluded the week prior..  Our final act for  his series on the heart, was to write down the lies we believed or the grieves we were holding onto, on a sheet of paper, that we then took out to a fire pit and burned.  It was a beautiful symbolic act and something I applaud.

Being able to identify the load of crap you've bought into or being able to face the parts of your past that seem to still have a grip on you, all by itself, is a miracle.  Dr. David D Burns shares in his book, "When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life" that most outlined steps to change, seldom recognize the first obstacle is getting people to want to change.  Change and self-reflection are subjects we talk about but often do nothing about.  That means writing things down and burning it is a breakthrough, but the problem is, the symbolic gesture of letting go isn't enough. 

Yes,God has forgiven me.

True, I can't live in the past. 

But, saying those things and pretending you have moved on when,  in fact you just ignore the pain, isn't enough! 

Let's be honest, life sucks.  Sure it doesn't all suck and perspective is a huge factor in our quality of live, but obstacles and loss are a part of life.  We don't live in a society that takes the time to grieve and process that loss, so if we are an admired member of society we just trek on and pick up some new socially acceptable addiction that allows us to push through life and survive. 

I don't want to survive.  I don't want to settle for the status quo.  I want freedom and I want to succeed and thrive, not just in my business but in my life.  I want to sleep and go to bed without guilt of what I've done.  I want the freedom to be myself without the confines of my past shame or regret. I believe if you are reading this, you want that too!

That only happens when we:

1. Face the Past
2. Replace the Lies Or Redefine Our Norms
3. Create a New Path

God knows life is hard and he knows we get hurt by the junk we encounter and he wants us to properly handle it which is why he tells us to demolish those lies and take our thoughts captive.  (2 Corinthians 10:5) 

To get to a good place, we must wallow in the mud of our stuff.  That process looks different depending on what you have walked. 

When I sew something (usually very basic) and the stitching is bunched up or in the wrong place, I have to go in there and rip out the thread.  I have to do it carefully so as not to damage the fabric.  This is the same process when we allow ourselves the space to heal from our past - it takes time and attention, and I have to take the old out before I can redo it. 

Just like a fender bender can leave a dent in your bumper, when we get banged around in life, we experience emotional bumps and bruises.  We accumulate these messages about ourselves that often are misguided or outright lies and they change the decisions we make and the thoughts we entertain.  We then lug these hurts around with us and allow them to taint how we see ourselves and the world around us.  Forgiveness and a choice to be done with it prepares us to actually get in there and replace the faulty patterns. 

Isaiah 43:9 says - "For I am about to do something new."

My freshman year of college, I ugly cried for hours (without a much needed box of tissues) and when I was done yelling at God for the pain I'd been carrying for years, I heard God say, "Finally, I have been waiting for you to get that out so I could pour myself into you."  It was like a pitcher of filthy water that I had to dump so that God could put clean, drinkable water into that pitcher. 

Where are you in this process, and what is your next step.  The truth is, I've already done this with two major parts of my past and am in process on a third right now.  In the process of properly handling my past, I'm learning skills to help me process the present and that, my friends, is amazing!  Will you join me?  We can't change the past, but we don't have to let it keep changing us!  If you are someone walking through a rough time, let me encourage you to go against our culture, grieve and inventory all that is coming at you, but take your time.  Don't rush away from pain, yes it hurts, but healing takes time and you don't want to come back to it later because you didn't let yourself heal. 

Its okay to be in process, living any other way, is just FICTION!

By The Time You Get It, You Won't Want It

Who has wronged you?  Who has stolen your money, your sexuality, your spirit, your years, your joy?  Who tarnished your reputation or turned their back on you?  The level of wronged varies between us but I would guess most of us, if not all, have been, in fact, wronged.  

Its one thing to know the Bible and quote a verse that acts as a bandaid to a wound, its quite another to walk it out.  To say, “love your enemy,” sounds poetic and beautiful and looks nicely on a note to a friend, but to actually love the man who cheated on you and left you for another model, is much harder.  To care for a person who stole your life savings or raped your virginity right from you, that is a different story.  Its not as pretty in the fleshly, day-to-day life.  

A friend recently was sharing her heart with me about her own wrong.  She said she wanted God to take revenge on this person and she waited for that day.  My response?  When you finally get it, you won’t want it anymore.  Then I shared a story from my own life.  

About five years after my parents divorce, my mom rekindled the flame with a high school boyfriend.  The two were married and we relocated to a neighboring state to start our new life, but unfortunately this man wasn’t transparent about the state of his soul.  He had in fact lied to my mom about his spiritual connection with God.  He was not a Christian and he had grown up with some challenges that stayed with him through out his life.  He was an abusive alcoholic.  Our world changed and the years of abuse took a toll on my mom and my sister and I.  He and my mom divorced about five years later.  

The pain I carried led me to some really bad choices in the next few years.  I hit some hard times and while in college began to surrender the hurt God.  He worked in my heart and led me to a place where I could confront my former step father.  So I did.  Something happened - in our conversation, a piece of paper I wrote out ahead of time and read to him as we sat on his couch, I saw the pain he carried.  He was hurting.  It was as if God opened my heart and took my anger and replaced it with compassion.   I then told him he was forgiven.  I told him God loved him and he needed to turn to God.  His actions did not dictate his value and he needed to get right with God so that one day he could join his Savior in heaven.  

I left that day changed, but it wasn’t the end of the story.  Fast-forward to my 30’s.  This same man was dying of cancer.  I no longer lived close by and I was processing his pending death.  It hit me: I realized that the worst days of my life, were the best days of his.  I realized that he knew God because of his time with us.  In that moment, giving him that gift felt worth all the pain I had suffered.  I was no longer the hurting girl, but the woman God had brought me too.  I could have gotten revenge but instead I felt love and even better, compassion, in my heart to the hurting soul inside the man that was now going to meet his maker.  

If, and that is a BIG if, you are seeking God with your pain, then by the time you get your revenge you won’t want it.  Be assured, I am NOT a saint!  The story I just shared was all an act of God.  The best thing you can do is surrender your pain to God and trust him.  It won’t make sense in the midst of the pain.  Please notice my gracious epiphany came 25 plus years later. Distance allowed perspective.  

Now its your turn: What pain are you holding onto (maybe even collecting) that you need to surrender? Comment your thoughts below, I'd love to have you join the conversation.  

But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  Matthew 5:44 (New Living Translation) 

Heartless

I heard a song at the beginning of a movie on TV this past weekend that I had to find. With some research efforts I was able to discover "Heartless" by Adrien Reju and successfully added it to my itunes collection. The ironic part is in a matter of days the lyrics in a song would become my heart cry with a simple phone call.

There is a part of my life I often refer to with accurate factual detail. Its a collage of events that are apart of my past and a part from which I have effectively become emotionally detached. However, those memories that seemed almost dream like awoke when I discovered someone who represented so much negative in my life is dying. My heart broke open with emotion that were neither expected or explainable. They weren't feeling of anger or self-sadness, but instead compassion and love. And the "hardest years I've ever known" have been right beside me for the past few days more of a friend than an enemy as "I may someday be friend to my enemy."

You see I love someone not because of what they have done, but just because. I grieve for the life that could have been and the part of my past in the hellish mess that were cherished and wonderful. I weep at the thought that my times of deepest pain was the greatest time in his life. Disfunctional as it may be I was one of his two only children even though I am not his. My heart is in pain right now and words seem to inadequately describe all that is happening inside. My past has met my present with quite a deal of suprise and I am not sure what it all means I am just taking it one day at a time.