Let go of the darkness: thoughts on forgiveness

Sometimes a certain topic keeps repeating itself in our lives.  To me that means that I need to stop and pay attention. Recently one of those topics for me was forgiveness.  This is a hard concept for many people, myself included.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tell his disciples to forgive "not seven times, but seventy times seven times" (Matthew 18:21-22).  This is one of the first verses I think of when I think of forgiveness.  Seven is the number of completion and perfection in the Old Testament.  When Jesus says to forgive seventy times seven times, he is not saying to literally count 490 times and then quit forgiving.  Instead, he is emphasizing that we are to forgive because it is the right thing to do.  We are to keep on forgiving because it is something God commands of us.  It is something God has done for us and then we are to do for others.  It helps us to live at peace with one another (Romans 12:18, Hebrews 12, Ephesians 4).

Christians are bad at forgiveness.  This goes to our human nature.  Our longing to hold resentment against others.  To judge others and have jealousy.  Our nature to seek revenge and long to get even with others.  We see this within churches.  I see this within myself.  Sometimes we get confused between what it means to seek justice and what it means to forgive.

So much of Christian culture talks about forgiving and forgetting.  That in forgiving we allow ourselves to go back to those who have hurt us and to possibly be hurt again.  That those who hurt people just need to be forgiven and do not need to be held responsible for their actions.  Sometimes it is a good friend who hurt our feelings and we figure that it is safe to go back.  But sometimes the pain is something that may seem unforgivable.  It may be abuse of power or sexual assault / rape or repeated hurtful words beyond comprehension.

This is the stream of thought that tells folks who have been victims of crimes to forgive their oppressors and to keep giving them their power.  It is the stream of thought that tells women and men to stay in their abusive relationships.  It is the stream of thought that tells sexual assault survivors that they need to forgive their assaulter, who they most likely know, and to pretend that the assault did not happen.  This is the idea that forgiveness means starting completely over and pretending that what was wrong did not happen.

This was posted today in one of the Facebook groups I'm in.  Thought it was fitting to put here given this topic.

Not only does that allow for people to do hateful and sinful actions without consequence, but I can't help but think that forgiveness is more complicated than that.  I can't help but feel that there is more meaning than forgiving something and ignoring that it ever happened.  Because I don't think that's how forgiveness works.  That doesn't pay into consideration a major peace of the puzzle that is missing -- self-love and self-care.  Sometimes these mechanisms churches have used to cover up abuse and sin shame people who are victims and are not respectful of their self-care and esteem.

I have come to realize that boundaries are an essential part of living life.  We need to have boundaries in our relationships with others, with ourselves, with work, and with our time (as a few examples).  This can mean giving yourself permission to say no to a volunteer task.  This could mean saying no to someone who continually takes advantage of you.  This could mean saying "I'm busy" to going out when you've had a hard week and your only real plans are drinking wine and watching Netflix.  It could mean deciding not to be friends any longer with a long-time friend because they repeatedly say mean things to you.  It can mean forgiving someone in your heart and still setting boundaries around your interaction with that person.

It is okay to set boundaries.

In a recent video, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber describes forgiveness as not letting a person have power over you.  She talks about how sometimes when someone hurts us we carry around pain in the form of a darkness.  This darkness can hurt our well being and get in the way of us being our most real and authentic selves.  It can get in the way of us living out our callings and in treating all people with love.  It can be damaging to us and our mental and emotional energy.

Bolz-Weber describes forgiveness as not allowing that person to have control over you anymore.  It is to let go of the resentment.  To choose to let it go -- to not let the other person to have power over you.  It does not mean going back and necessarily choosing to engage in that relationship with them again, but simply choosing to let go of the darkness.

It can be choosing to not let the person who has wronged you have control over you and at the same time setting up boundaries around their interaction with you in the future.  After all reconciliation and forgiveness are different things.  And while both are important as Christians, so is knowing our hearts and our limits.

The book of Proverbs tells us to protect our hearts because it is the wellspring of life (4:23).  Protecting my heart for me means placing boundaries around my relationships with certain people because I feel some darkness toward them.  For me to love this person in a Christ-filled way, I need to set up boundaries in my life.  I may need to not see them, restrict the time I spend with them, or even cut them out of my life, at least for the time being.  I know I have to continue to work on my feelings towards them, but I also know that at least for the time being, these are the boundaries I need to set.

Forgiveness is a heart issue first and foremost.  Just because you forgive someone does not mean their action are going to change.  It does not mean that their heart is changed.  Recognizing that, sometimes we are able to set up boundaries and know that even though we have forgiven someone in our hearts, reconciliation may not need to happen now.  Maybe it will happen eventually, as I have seen happen in my life.  You can't force others to change and the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I am not the best at forgiveness.  There are certain people I see and the darkness returns inside of me.  This is a good indicator that I haven't actually forgiven this person.  I struggle with this.  I think we all do. Thank goodness God forgives me and knows my heart.  Thank goodness God is teaching me these lessons.

I think forgiveness is a continuous this that God seeks for us to do.  You may need to forgive a single person seventy times seven times, as Jesus describes (anyone who's ever been married or in a long relationship knows this).  It is a decision to not let others have control over my inner peace and to continuously forgive.