The First Step Toward Forgiveness

The First Step Toward Forgiveness

A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but the resentment caused by a fool is heavier than both. –Proverbs 27:3

“I left while you were speaking because you really made me mad,” the last woman in line said to me. I couldn’t imagine what I’d said that made her so mad. “It was what you said about forgiveness,” she said. An accumulation of offenses had left her so angry, she couldn’t talk about it without tears.

“Forgiveness is not minimizing what someone has done or saying that it didn’t matter,” I had said. “Forgiveness says, ‘You hurt me deeply, but I’m not going to make you pay. You don’t owe me anymore—not even an apology.’ ” The suggestion that she didn’t have to wait for the people who had hurt her to be sorry or even acknowledge what they had done before she forgave was too big a hurdle for her. And maybe it is for you, too. She saw the imagined confrontation she thought would feel so delicious slipping away, so she walked out.

But she was miserable inside and tired of carrying such a heavy load of resentment. And she knew she was making everyone around her miserable too, so she came back to talk. While she knew she needed to forgive, it felt to her like a mountain too tall to climb. “I know it feels like forgiving them is not only unfair, but impossible,” I told her. “But you have a choice. You can decide it is too hard for you, and a year from now you will be more embittered, more miserable than you are now. Or you can begin to move forward, starting today, so that a year from now, your load will be at least a little bit lighter.” Forgiveness doesn’t usually happen overnight. The deeper the hurt, the longer the process. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start down that road today. You likely won’t get rid of all your negative emotions immediately, but don’t let that keep you where you are. Your first step toward finding freedom may be simply asking God to give you the want-to.

Aren’t you tired of carrying around the heaviness in your heart that not only robs you of happiness, but also spreads its poison to everyone around you? Won’t you take the first step toward forgiveness?

My Burden Bearer, this load is getting too heavy for me, and I know I must begin to let it go. Will you give me the want-to for forgiveness so I can take at least one step toward lightening my load?

DIGGING DEEPER