Forgivenenss Challenge Day 16 - Telling a New Story

The actual Forgiveness Challenge is on Day 21 or so, but I am back on Day 16 because I really am doing this at my own pace.  Day 15 talked about being a forgiveness hero instead of a victim.  The title of it, "Forgiveness Hero," led me to think of my own forgiveness heroes.  Nelson Mandela.  The people of South Africa.  Jesus.  The parents of the Amish girls.  For me, people who forgive those who have hurt them are the strongest and most courageous of all.  Who are your forgiveness heroes?

I want so badly to have the courage that my heroes have and so I have always tried to forgive others, some with more success than others.  Where I fall down is that I move too quickly to say, "I forgive you," because I want to find the peace that comes with forgiveness, but I don't actually do the work it takes to get to true forgiveness.  "It didn't matter," I say.  "Of course I forgive you," I say.  "No worries."  Right.  No worries until the next time when all of my unspoken and unresolved hurt, fear, anger, and disappointment rise up inside me shining a bright light on my lack of honesty.  I do not mean to be dishonest when I say I have forgiven, but nevertheless, I am.

This Fourfold path to forgiveness, this writing down of hurts and stories, this use of visualization to experience and let go of the big feelings, this process of telling the story and finding compassion for ourselves and for the ones who hurt us is a way to be honest about what happened.  It wasn't okay.  It did matter.  AND I can forgive.  For real.  Not just for pretend.  The lesson I have to learn is that I have to own all those feelings that I don't like, move through them instead of just burying them, so that I can tell a new story, a story that does not cast me in the role of victim but in the role of hero.  A story that shows I've healed.  It's not much fun to be a victim, not very life-giving.  And yet without acknowledging the pain, I can't truly forgive it.  

This Easter season is drawing to a close.  As we approach Pentecost, the day of the coming of the Holy Spirit, I pray that God will give us all the courage to walk the path of forgiveness, whether it's the Tutu Fourfold Path or some other, so that we all might tell a new story in which we are the heroes, not the victims, and in which we have come to know the peace that true forgiveness brings.