How to Forgive When you Don’t Feel Like It.
Forgiveness has been an issue for me on several occasions. Holding onto feelings of hurt and anger can be a very real blockage to spiritual growth. So, how do we forgive when we really don’t feel like it? What do we actually do with the hurt and anger? I struggled with this for a long time until I realised that first step is an ‘act of will’ and not a feeling. That intellectual decision to forgive enables God to start the forgiving process which is achieved through His grace rather than something which comes from within us. We are very complex creatures, not robots, and sometimes the healing process takes time.
A few years ago my neighbour did a great hurt to my family. She was elderly, frail and had dementia so she didn’t really know what she was doing. Nevertheless I couldn’t forgive her even though it all turned our right in the end. I found that I couldn’t even bear to think about her let alone see her. This was a problem since she lived next door and we had adjoining gardens. I finally told myself that I still felt really angry with her but I would intellectually forgive her even though I didn’t feel like it. The anger didn’t disappear but it enabled God to begin to deal with it. A few days later she knocked on my door to ask me to change a light bulb and I could hardly refuse – even though I wanted to! I could barely look at her let along speak to her but I changed the light bulb. The next step was to say hello to her over the garden fence and so on. It took a long time but eventually worked itself out. She died a little later and I would have felt very unhappy if she had died and I hadn’t made any attempt at reconciliation.
My guide in this is my lovely patron saint Jeanne-Francoise de Chantal. Her beloved husband was killed by his best friend in a freak hunting accident. He took a while to die in agony but he forgave his distraught friend on his death bed. However, Jeanne-Francoise could not feel forgiveness because the grief and hurt was just too great. So she did it in little stages. First she saw the man in the street, then she greeted him and so on. It took several years but they were eventually reconciled and she even became godmother to his children.
I had a friend who was told by an evangelical Christian who had prayed over her that she was healed from depression and her problem now was that she hadn’t accepted that healing. Well, she wasn’t healed from the depression so can you imagine the extra burden that put on her? Now she thought it was all her fault because she wasn’t a good enough Christian to be healed. Ironically, this actually blocked God from healing her. She struggled on for years with the depression until it was explained to her that she is a very complex person with a complex problem. God is gentle and respectful and it would take time for God to heal the effects of years and years of the violent abuse she had suffered which had caused the depression in the first place. As soon as she was released from that added burden she started serious Christian counselling which enabled God to begin the healing process – and I can tell you it was successful.
If we make an intellectual decision to forgive, God deals with the process. Please be kind to yourselves – you are probably being a lot harder on yourselves than God would ever be. Forgiveness is a process rather than an overnight happening. We are wondrously made and it takes a time to unravel all the complicated strands that make up a problem!
Give God the time He needs and put it in His hands. I promise it will work out.
