The "F" Word
"Forgiveness". One of those words that is easy to say, but difficult to do.
The holidays bring about a lot of opportunities to practice forgiveness. Thanksgiving and Christmas involve encounters with people you successfully avoid the rest of the year. The holidays return us to our hometowns and put us right in the path of family members or others who may have wounded us. We take a deep breath as we cross into territory we had hoped to leave behind and we feel all those old feelings as if they were fresh.
I don't generally tell my story, but I think it will help illustrate the point I hope to make.
The first two decades of my life were spent living in one small, rural town. It is the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else and your secrets don't stay secret for very long due to the local grapevine. My small town always felt a little itchy and uncomfortable, like a pair of hand-me-down shoes that are too small but you have to wear them anyway.
Life was pretty good for me until the fifth grade. Developmentally speaking, fifth grade is one of the hardest years for most girls. It is the transition period between childhood and the tween years. Interests change from playtime to "being cool". Friendships change, too. Gone are the days of playing with just about anyone; ushered in are the days of clamoring for "BFF's". Children mature at different rates and some kids get left behind in childhood as others lord their coolness over the rest of their tween peers.
In fifth grade I didn't feel that different from everyone else in my class. I didn't realize that it wasn't cool to enjoy learning and reading. It didn't yet cross my mind that my secondhand clothes and the stuff my mom sewed were inferior to the store-bought clothes of the cool kids. I had my group of friends who had always been my friends and I didn't notice that we were starting to become the butt of jokes.
One girl in particular rose to leadership of the popular kids that year. I will call her "Queenie". There was nothing special about her other than her last name. Her family was one of the largest families in our town, with lots of cousins littering the ranks of our class and the grades above and below us. Queenie wasn't especially pretty or funny or talented, but she was powerful. This girl was the puppet-master of our class. She decided who was "in" and who was "out". I was always out. What is worse, Queenie so despised me that she wouldn't allow anyone from the popular group to even speak to me. If they were caught being remotely respectful or kind toward me, then they were out, too. She was unforgiving in her resolve to make sure that I was forever an outsider. I spent the entire fifth and sixth grade trying desperately to right some mysterious wrong I didn't know I had made. To this day I have no idea why Queenie loathed me so thoroughly.
As we grew older, her hatred continued but her influence waned slightly. My classmates became more comfortable making their own social choices and I even became friends with a couple of the popular girls. Even still, Queenie's early hatred left me on the blacklist in the minds of many kids in our class, which left me vulnerable to cruel comments and missed social opportunities. I vividly remember a day when I was wearing one of my favorite outfits. It was a store-bought outfit I had chosen for myself. I loved that outfit and felt beautiful wearing it. Plus, it was a style that was in current fashion -- not something off the 90% off rack at the discount store. One of Queenie's friends noticed my confidence and said "Why are you wearing that? Don't you know how ridiculous you look?"
Another day a group of Queenie's popular friends decided it was time to harass me about my social life. As the child of two alcoholic grandfathers who had ruined their lives and died young, I chose not to drink. That meant I generally avoided parties full of my drunken classmates. "How often do you party?" asked the star athlete of our class.
"What do you mean?" I replied.
"I never see you at parties. That must mean you never party. Don't you ever go out?" he sneered.
"I go out. I have a social life. I just don't need to get drunk to do it."
Unsatisfied with my answer he pushed, "So, how many times do you go out? You say you have a social life…so how many times have you gone out? Why don't you count it up for us? I don't think you mean it. I don't think you have a life at all."
And he continued to push like that until I finally walked away in tears.
After high school graduation I chose to walk away from my hometown. I go back periodically because my family still lives there, but I have no ambition to live there again. When I drive back into my old zip code, I feel anxiety well up in my soul. Those old memories come to the front of my brain and shove out all the confidence I have gained in my adult life. Suddenly I find myself transformed into that girl who was being mocked for wearing her favorite outfit. It is hard to see past the anxiety I feel to see anything else. I begin dreading encounters I might have with old classmates, even though they have most likely grown up and grown out of their meanness.
Despite how it sounds, I have forgiven Queenie and her cronies. My forgiveness doesn't change what happened in the past. Those memories still reside in my brain. Forgiveness also doesn't make me eager to repeat the past by giving Queenie or anyone else the opportunity to replay those terrible moments. I have grown up and embraced who God created me to be and the friends who love me for it. There is no need to go back to win over those people from my past who inexplicably loathed me way back when.
Forgiveness is a state of my own mind and heart -- not a condition of the present or future circumstances in which I choose to place myself. Were you abused or neglected as a child? Forgiving your abuser doesn't mean you put your safety in the hands of that person again. Or maybe it was rape. Forgiving the rapist doesn't mean you need to go on a date with him again to show that you've forgiven the past. Of course not!
For many of us, the holidays involve placing ourselves in the direct path of someone who has harmed us in the past. Maybe it was a relative who abused you and left emotional scars that exist to this day. Forgiveness releases you from the burden of anger you bear toward that person, but it doesn't mean you need to allow the abuse to continue in the future. Protect yourself. Stay close to people you trust to keep you safe. Walk away from the abuser if he or she attempts to corner you. Call them out for their harmful behavior and let them know you won't accept it anymore. None of those means of protection take away from your choice to forgive -- it just means you are using the brain that God placed in your head.
The holidays bring about a lot of opportunities to practice forgiveness. Thanksgiving and Christmas involve encounters with people you successfully avoid the rest of the year. The holidays return us to our hometowns and put us right in the path of family members or others who may have wounded us. We take a deep breath as we cross into territory we had hoped to leave behind and we feel all those old feelings as if they were fresh.
I don't generally tell my story, but I think it will help illustrate the point I hope to make.
The first two decades of my life were spent living in one small, rural town. It is the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else and your secrets don't stay secret for very long due to the local grapevine. My small town always felt a little itchy and uncomfortable, like a pair of hand-me-down shoes that are too small but you have to wear them anyway.
Life was pretty good for me until the fifth grade. Developmentally speaking, fifth grade is one of the hardest years for most girls. It is the transition period between childhood and the tween years. Interests change from playtime to "being cool". Friendships change, too. Gone are the days of playing with just about anyone; ushered in are the days of clamoring for "BFF's". Children mature at different rates and some kids get left behind in childhood as others lord their coolness over the rest of their tween peers.
In fifth grade I didn't feel that different from everyone else in my class. I didn't realize that it wasn't cool to enjoy learning and reading. It didn't yet cross my mind that my secondhand clothes and the stuff my mom sewed were inferior to the store-bought clothes of the cool kids. I had my group of friends who had always been my friends and I didn't notice that we were starting to become the butt of jokes.
One girl in particular rose to leadership of the popular kids that year. I will call her "Queenie". There was nothing special about her other than her last name. Her family was one of the largest families in our town, with lots of cousins littering the ranks of our class and the grades above and below us. Queenie wasn't especially pretty or funny or talented, but she was powerful. This girl was the puppet-master of our class. She decided who was "in" and who was "out". I was always out. What is worse, Queenie so despised me that she wouldn't allow anyone from the popular group to even speak to me. If they were caught being remotely respectful or kind toward me, then they were out, too. She was unforgiving in her resolve to make sure that I was forever an outsider. I spent the entire fifth and sixth grade trying desperately to right some mysterious wrong I didn't know I had made. To this day I have no idea why Queenie loathed me so thoroughly.
As we grew older, her hatred continued but her influence waned slightly. My classmates became more comfortable making their own social choices and I even became friends with a couple of the popular girls. Even still, Queenie's early hatred left me on the blacklist in the minds of many kids in our class, which left me vulnerable to cruel comments and missed social opportunities. I vividly remember a day when I was wearing one of my favorite outfits. It was a store-bought outfit I had chosen for myself. I loved that outfit and felt beautiful wearing it. Plus, it was a style that was in current fashion -- not something off the 90% off rack at the discount store. One of Queenie's friends noticed my confidence and said "Why are you wearing that? Don't you know how ridiculous you look?"
Another day a group of Queenie's popular friends decided it was time to harass me about my social life. As the child of two alcoholic grandfathers who had ruined their lives and died young, I chose not to drink. That meant I generally avoided parties full of my drunken classmates. "How often do you party?" asked the star athlete of our class.
"What do you mean?" I replied.
"I never see you at parties. That must mean you never party. Don't you ever go out?" he sneered.
"I go out. I have a social life. I just don't need to get drunk to do it."
Unsatisfied with my answer he pushed, "So, how many times do you go out? You say you have a social life…so how many times have you gone out? Why don't you count it up for us? I don't think you mean it. I don't think you have a life at all."
And he continued to push like that until I finally walked away in tears.
After high school graduation I chose to walk away from my hometown. I go back periodically because my family still lives there, but I have no ambition to live there again. When I drive back into my old zip code, I feel anxiety well up in my soul. Those old memories come to the front of my brain and shove out all the confidence I have gained in my adult life. Suddenly I find myself transformed into that girl who was being mocked for wearing her favorite outfit. It is hard to see past the anxiety I feel to see anything else. I begin dreading encounters I might have with old classmates, even though they have most likely grown up and grown out of their meanness.
Despite how it sounds, I have forgiven Queenie and her cronies. My forgiveness doesn't change what happened in the past. Those memories still reside in my brain. Forgiveness also doesn't make me eager to repeat the past by giving Queenie or anyone else the opportunity to replay those terrible moments. I have grown up and embraced who God created me to be and the friends who love me for it. There is no need to go back to win over those people from my past who inexplicably loathed me way back when.
Forgiveness is a state of my own mind and heart -- not a condition of the present or future circumstances in which I choose to place myself. Were you abused or neglected as a child? Forgiving your abuser doesn't mean you put your safety in the hands of that person again. Or maybe it was rape. Forgiving the rapist doesn't mean you need to go on a date with him again to show that you've forgiven the past. Of course not!
For many of us, the holidays involve placing ourselves in the direct path of someone who has harmed us in the past. Maybe it was a relative who abused you and left emotional scars that exist to this day. Forgiveness releases you from the burden of anger you bear toward that person, but it doesn't mean you need to allow the abuse to continue in the future. Protect yourself. Stay close to people you trust to keep you safe. Walk away from the abuser if he or she attempts to corner you. Call them out for their harmful behavior and let them know you won't accept it anymore. None of those means of protection take away from your choice to forgive -- it just means you are using the brain that God placed in your head.
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