Becky gives birth to twins three months premature. Her little boy, she names Ryan is only 1.1 pound. Her daughter she will call Natalie is 2.7 pounds. Natalie is holding her own, but the doctors are very concerned about Ryan’s survival. His lungs are not developed and he has a poor prognosis. This mother is bitter and resentment at God for letting this happen to her. She can never forgive God.Why should I forgive when someone else is in the wrong and this includes God? I recently saw a quote from Pema Chodron that said: “holding a grudge is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die.” This message unveils a myth when we get angry about things we have no control. The truth is, there is no personal advantage to holding a grudge–anytime, or for any reason. Why? Because we are the ones who suffer, not the people we’re mad at.
Betsie Ten Boom, who died in a concentration camp, refused to hate the guards who beat her and eventually beat her to death. Her dying words are both simple and profound: "We must tell others what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." That is incredible. The forgiveness of Calvary in the twentieth first century!
Such courage in the face of overt hatred makes our petty differences just that - petty! If people who suffered such atrocies had the "heart" to forgive, then why can't we? I'm sure that I can safely say that there is no one who has not been hurt by others at some point in their lives. A spouse has walked out of our lives. Children have disappointed us. Parents have abused us. Friends have betrayed us. The company to which we gave so much devotion has downsized us without notice, leaving us unemployed and bitter. We have been refused promotion. We have been treated unfairly. There's a host of deep and abiding hurts in the personal histories of most of us. Pain and hurt is part of the human condition. Others hurt us even when they don't realize it, let alone when they intend to do so.
But forgiveness is hard, isn't it? To consciously break the vicious cycle of “revenge and a grudge” is not easy. Some people will say that “they have the right to be angry.” And of course, they would be right, but by forgiving we free up our energy to remain compassionate toward others and at peace within ourselves.
Anybody would find it difficult to put up with the “unfairness” of life. But the point is that we are not just anybody. We are called to be a reconciling community, a community that was born out of Calvary's forgiveness. And why should we forgive? Well, it turns out that forgiveness of others is a condition for our own forgiveness. We must remember that we were commanded to pray to the Father with the words: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." As Christians, we have to forgive one another. In order to do that, we have to look at the cross and repeat the words that Jesus used to forgive us: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends whose memories of past hurts and pain bind them to anger and revenge. May Your desire to forgive our trespasses inspire our efforts to be like leaves that fall along the river that carry away our hatred and refresh our spirit with Your divine compassion and inner peace.
