Crossroads - At The Intersection Of Resentment And Forgiveness

Crossroads - At the Intersection of Resentment and Forgiveness

I WANT TO LOOK and act like my friend Connie when I’m seventy years old. Energy and enthusiasm follow her like an orb as she zips through her daily three-mile walk around our neighborhood. One word sums her up: light. She’s pure light.

So, intrigued by this beautiful woman who is chronologically old enough to be my mom but young enough in spirit to be my baby sister, I invited Connie to lunch. I wanted to know about the important decisions she had made in her life and how they had shaped her. I knew there was much to learn from this feisty character.

Connie said, “One of the biggest choices I had to make throughout my life was whether to extend forgiveness or to hold on to resentment. I took the wrong road. I chose to harbor my hurt.”

Connie was birthed to a seventeen-year-old mom and an absentee father. Connie’s mother, being both a glamorous and fun-loving woman, lacked the emotional maturity to be the mom Connie longed for. For twelve years, while her mom dated, Connie’s grandmother, who lived with them, provided her care and direction. But at last her mother did settle down with a fabulous father figure for Connie, and she looked to establish the mother-daughter bond that Connie had longed for, for so many years. But it was too late.

In those short but formative first twelve years, Connie had learned to revel in resentment toward her mother. As her mother tried harder and harder to reach her, Connie realized that she had something to hold over her mom, and Connie found that she enjoyed the power. Connie told me, “I fed my hurt.”

Connie would continue to find herself at this same intersection over and over, as her mom sought to soothe the pain she had caused her then-young daughter. But Connie would always turn onto the road of resentment instead of forgiveness, looking for justice.

He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.He will bring justice to all who have been wronged. (Isaiah 42:3)

Withholding forgiveness can be a power trip for some people; they know they hold the keys to hurt and pain and the keys to peace. Which set dangles from your key chain?