From the Rector…
Forgiveness is a difficult thing. We know we need to forgive—Jesus tells us to do so. It is woven into who we are as Christians. But simply knowing we ought to do something does not make it easy.
Years ago, I was the victim of a group of people who gossiped about me and spread things that were not true. Sadly, that is an experience all too many of us share. It was a painful season marked not only by the gaslighting I received, but by the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that came with it. I was fortunate to have the resources and a supportive community to help me heal, but it still took time to forgive.
At first, my inability to forgive grew out of the expectation that those who had harmed me needed to apologize and ask for my forgiveness. As I wrestled with that unrealistic demand, I began to look more deeply at what Jesus says about forgiveness. There is, of course, his instruction to forgive “seventy times seven”—not a literal limit but a call to forgive completely. In Jewish tradition, the number seven symbolizes fullness. To forgive seventy times seven is to forgive with the fullness of heart to which God calls us. It is to forgive COMPLETELY.
Jesus offers other teachings on forgiveness as well:
- We forgive so that we ourselves might be forgiven.
- Our forgiveness should be sincere and from the heart.
- Forgiveness extends even to our enemies.
- We forgive even if we are the ones being wronged.
- Forgiveness is the first step toward reconciliation.
- Forgiveness frees us.
It was this last teaching that finally opened something in me. I forgave—not to release those who had harmed me from the weight of what they had done, but because in forgiving them, I released myself from their control. It may sound almost selfish, yet true forgiveness became for me an act of salvation—a liberation—through which I was freed from the negativity they had placed upon me. Instead of seeing myself through the eyes of shame and guilt, or overwhelmed by anger, their actions no longer held power over my identity or my spirit.
Forgiveness became a path to freedom. It loosened the grip of others’ judgment and quieted the anger that had begun to eat away at my own soul. I came to understand that forgiveness was more about my healing than about their remorse. Perhaps that seems like the “wrong” reason to forgive, but in forgiving so completely, I eventually learned to love those who had harmed me—even though they never acknowledged their wrongdoing or sought reconciliation. Their silence no longer mattered. As I learned to love them again, I began to see them with new, compassionate eyes.
And in that compassion, I recognized something profound: their actions toward me reflected wounds they carried long before I ever entered their lives. The harm they inflicted was born of harm they themselves had endured.
Forgiveness may be difficult—sometimes painfully so—but it is ultimately an act of compassion, both for oneself and for others.
Light and Life,
Candice+