I read a story online this morning about a girl's lamenting the fact that she didn't tell her dad she loved him enough. Father's Day was causing her to feel regret. It was a cautionary tale reminding all of us that we never know when someone will be gone, so be sure to leave nothing unsaid or undone between you and those you love.
I have been writing this week about my Dad and while my memories mostly bring up feelings of love, caring, peacefulness, joy, and comfort, they also bring the recognition of the hole that still exists in my heart from his passing. I know all the cliches about being happy he's where he is, knowing I'll see him again, and the fact that he's not in pain...and as true as they are there's still an empty place that will never be filled by anyone or anything else. Dad was dad - my safety net, counselor, friend; the one who understood me better than anyone else because I am so much like him! And while these mixed feelings and thoughts swirl around in my head, the one thing I honestly can say is that I do not harbor any regrets. There are no "shoulda, woulda, coulda's or I wish I..." clogging up my memories. Dad knew I loved him and I knew he loved me - unconditionally! That is not to say there weren't some little issues that cropped up from time to time. Every person, no matter how close you are to them, will offend you, misunderstand your intentions, or just plain hurt your feelings. That's just how life is! As hard as I tried to be his perfect daughter, there were times when I blew it. The thing was, years later when I tried to apologize for hurting him in some way, he had no clue as to what I was talking about. I was agonizing over something he didn't even remember. That's what forgiveness & forgetting is all about. That's what love is.
Forgiveness is acknowledging that a mistake, hurt, injury, or misunderstanding happened. It's not about ignoring those things or burying them. It doesn't require that the person who hurt me knows, cares, understands, or even remembers that they hurt me. It also doesn't demand that I tell them how, when, or how deep the injury was. It's not about them at all. It's about me - my feelings, my reactions, my willingness to surrender that hurt to the Lord. Depending on the size of the hurt, that could be a Big sacrifice - giving up my chance for retaliation, refusing to hold a grudge, not requiring that they feel my pain...It's about letting go of my "right" to confront what they did or didn't do and its affect on me! It's about letting God take care of it in His way and His time!
Then there's the forgetting part. Our brains can't magically rewind the past. For some, the hurts are isolated incidences, while for others there was long-term abuse. It doesn't matter. Nothing that happened can be fixed, redone, or deleted, apart from a miracle of God. It's there and you have to deal with it. Forgetting is not mental oblivion. There's no magic eraser for our past. What forgetting really means is that every time hurt rears its head, I refuse to give it place. I don't act on it, dwell on it, or relive it over & over; I remind myself that it's been given to God. It's no longer mine to deal with or "fix". It's not going to continue to sway my feeling, control my actions, or color my thoughts. I immediately surrender it again and refuse to let it have one more ounce of my energy or one more minute of my time. Sometimes that surrender has to happen multiple times a day - I'm not minimizing what some people have endured, and I'm certainly not advocating putting yourself in harm's way by renewing a toxic relationship. Some people are best loved from a distance. The bottom line is that unforgiveness hurts you. It robs you of life. It keeps you chained by bitterness to the person who hurt you and stops any future relationship that might be possible with the application of a little (or a lot) of grace. It leads to regret, sometimes not fully known until there's no hope of changing it. More than all of that, unforgiveness against others blocks your relationship with God. You can rationalize it all you want, but the Bible says if you don't forgive others, He can't forgive you! Since we are all in need of His forgiveness daily, It's not worth the price you have to pay to hang on to that broken past!
Dad wasn't one to hold a grudge. He dealt with things in his own way and let them go. Thankfully our Heavenly Father does the same. If God can wipe the slate clean for you, how can you justify not doing the same for others? Just do it. The freedom you feel will be worth your sacrifice - and living without regrets... Priceless!
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