Forgiveness is costly . . . but so is unforgiveness

Forgiveness is costly. . . .Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3.13 The Lord forgave us
of the very thing that cost him his life.

Forgive - pardon; excuse for a fault or offense; renounce anger or resentment against; absolve from payment for a debt.

The dictionary definition enables us to see that there are various kinds of forgiveness. For instance, the governor may pardon a convicted killer, but that
forgiveness usually does not come at great personal cost to the
governor. Similarly, the $500 loan the young couple is
excused from repaying their parents is forgiveness of debt, but not
likely to cause the parents to grieve their loss in the matter. But
it is the words or actions of another (particularly one whom we esteem)
that hurt us emotionally that are the most difficult to forgive. Hurt
is the primary emotional response, which may then turn
into anger, hatred, resentment, bitterness, woundedness, or even
brokenness.

Take my friend, the Duke of Earl. He has deep gouges from the judgment and criticism of his six brothers and sisters. Their conditional love of him in his late teens
and beyond when they learned of his drug involvement hurt him greatly.
When a young nephew he adored met an untimely death, he wasn’t invited
to the funeral, and it crushed him. Later, when they
learned he had ruined his marriage, there was more hypocritical judgment
and alienation, and the pain was too much to bear. Well,
two thousand miles and many years now separate him from them, and from
the wife he adored. What has their behavior and his
unforgiveness (of them) cost him? Intimacy, friendships, love, and his
faith--as he has used whatever he could find to numb his pain. Part
of his pain is knowing how love felt, knowing the way God would have
him go and yet choosing to go the other way—the pain of violating his
own conscience. It is the reason he described himself to
me as ‘Jonah’, who disobeyed God.

It is the reason, the song “Desperado” so aptly fits him: “Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so
long now… Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger Your pain and
your hunger, they're drivin' you home - And
freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin', Your prison
is walking through this world all alone - Don't your feet
get cold in the winter time? The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine -
It's hard to tell the night time from the day. You're losin' all your
highs and lows. . . Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? Come down from your fences, open the gate. It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late. . .”

He is intelligent, strong, handsome, charming, and yet a wounded Desperado, who sleeps under a parking garage stairwell. Forgiveness
might be costly, but how could it be more costly than that?

Several hit ‘reply’ and commented on “Forgiveness is POWERFUL”- One person wrote, ‘That was so powerful and I will utilize it. I have been so hurt by what my two friends have done to me.
They still have not spoken to me since Dec. It has hurt and rocked me to
my core and I struggle everyday as I have tried earnestly to make
amends so many times, only to continue to be ignored. I feel I have done
nothing to deserve this. It makes me so sad and mad, but I
will forgive them as I have known all along I would have to do. This
really put it into perspective.’ You see, my dear friend
would find forgiveness easy if these “friends” had not hurt her so much. It
is the hurt that is hard to get past, isn’t it? And it is
those who are closest to us that have the ability to hurt us the most;
consequently, it is often hardest to forgive those we really love, and
for whom forgiveness is most needed.

I have friends who were sexually abused by relatives when they were too young to defend themselves. . . how do they come to forgive such people? Honestly, I
believe it is only through the grace of God.

A couple weeks ago, I sat in my office talking with a fellow who had been abandoned by his dad at a very young age. We talked about how that made
him into a person who would only ‘let people in so far’… how guarded he
was…until he did some work in counseling and with the Lord. His
pain from childhood no longer defines him, although it does motivate
him to be the best, in-touch father and husband he can be. Yes,
past pain can be used for good in our lives!

To put the whole matter in perspective though, I think of Jesus. Think of the emotional pain he felt when his family rejected him as Savior . . .
Peter denied him, when he was scourged and mocked. I do
not care if he was God incarnate—God in the flesh—all of this hurt him
deeply. And yet, he forgave.

Take your pain to him; he understands. You won’t forget what caused you pain, but you will be able to forgive.

Christine