“You cannot keep birds from flying over your head. but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair”
Martin Luther King Jr.
1. Prologue
Forgiveness... a word so misused in everyday life that it has long lost its acquaintance with its original meaning.
Let's look at the definition given to the word according to the Oxford English Dictionary;
"To Stop being angry towards (someone) for an offence, flaw, or mistake."
"To No longer feel angry about or wish to punish (an offence, flaw, or mistake"
"To Cancel (a debt)"
"Used in polite expressions as a request to excuse one's foibles, ignorance, or impoliteness."
Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.
2. The Conversation Begins
I walked into an evening service in Full Gospel Church Makerere when I was sixteen to find the Pastor leading a series on forgiveness. I have never felt so targeted by a sermon in my whole life. He spoke of the need to forgive and the effects of unforgiveness like chronically illness, mental illness etc. I was sixteen but had suffered from a severe peptic ulcer since I was a child. And here was a Pastor saying it could be rooted in unforgiveness.
As I sat there rooted to my pew, I heard him speak directly to my heart, mentioning habits like always regurgitating what people have done, storing up resentment, smiling while keeping a record of wrongs and how that could stagnate your spiritual growth and social development.
It was the beginning of a journey in the Word for me. God began speaking to me about forgiveness in my own life. He spoke about the root of bitterness that grows from not addressing injustices done to you. About how Cane in the Bible in his envy against Abel was warned that sin was lurking at his door but still gave in to it. About how Moses in his failure to control his wrath sinned against God and lost his chance to live in the promised land. About how bitterness can close your heart to love, and wound those around you. That is why they say hurt people hurt people.
We have seen defiled children become defiled, we have seen abused children become abusive spouses and we have seen bullies children become criminals. We have to be intentional about arresting the sin before it births another. And forgiveness cuts that code. This is because it begins a healing process which is a position progression from a negative experience. And when you ride the waves of your pain you become like the eagle, riding the storm to go higher and making your wings stronger. Forgiveness is a sign of strength and healing because bitterness and unforgiveness only harm you who is harboring them.
3. The Age of Storms
As a teenager, I was quite introverted and I absorbed everything around me. My senses were heightened to injustice and I can only blame that on hormones I guess. As a teenager you are extremely delicate emotionally, on the cusp of adulthood and yet still very much a child. Your body and mind are usually at war, your friends are going through the same and the world does not seem to have the time to wait for you to process all you are going through.
In our teenage we were being bombarded by messages about HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy, making career choices, etc. We were dealing with the meaning of life on so many planes, we were just beginning to understand so much about our parents, we were dealing with a sense of identity and also trying to manage the war adolescence was wreaking on our young bodies... body hair, odor, cycles etc and in the midst of all this we were under pressure to perform academically and also cope with the opposite sex. Some of us were wondering why the Holy Spirit slew others and not us... why some spoke in tongues and others didn't, and still why the "bad boys and girls" seemed to be having all the fun despite all the warnings to the contrary.
And in the midst of this our emotional 6th sense was waking up and turned to full volume. We were so hyper aware of all the wrong things. And therefore were like permalink markers recording hurts that others wrought on us.
So forgiveness was not the message one wanted to hear in the midst of a rebellious and tumultuous stage in life. But God caught me and held me fast. Even then I was a voracious reader and I started reading up on forgiveness. I also journaled a lot about how it applied to my life. And boy did the lights start going on! And what a mess I found. As I started to unravel that thread of some of the things I held (it could be as petty as that teacher who was mean to me) I found a freedom.. and a physical healing from the ulcer that had ailed me all my life. As I speak I have not had a bleeding ulcer attack since then. And the pain went away. That's how I enjoy my hot Asian cuisine without a glitch.
4. The Girl Factor
I believe that being female comes with whole range of "much". Forgive my incoherence but that's the only fitting way I can describe it. We come with an already tuned up volume on our senses, emotions and passions as women and that is why we bewilder our poor men with how intensely we seem to experience everything. I therefore think women need to heed this message more.
Women have a photographic memory when it comes to emotions. We might not remember how it happened but we shall remember to the detail how it made us feel. And our emotions are so powerful that they can zap the life out of a room or fill it with light.
An animation I love called Inside Out has a girl called Joy who of where was sad everything stopped functioning.
God gave us such a superpower as women that we either build or destroy our children and spouses with it. We therefore need to indeed guard our hearts and unforgiveness is one of the blights to our experiencing real joy.
With this kind of makeup a teenage girl's heart can be very messy.
Doctors have said that sometimes even emotions felt while in the womb awaken during teenage. These days we have alot of teenage substance abuse, suicide, and depression because unlike in our days where we were too busy with chores or in our parents days where some were already parents, these teenagers have a lot of time and loneliness that somehow magnifies these experiences.
5. A Special Generation
Generation Z as they call it has experienced more emotionally than physically and has a lower pain threshold and a much lower resilience level. This is why even cyber bullying which the millenials would scoff at leads to suicides.
And that is why forgiveness and learning to let go might just be a solution for helping today's teenager cope with life and all its stress.
As I learnt about forgiveness I started learning to see me as God saw me. And I started learning why it was important to forgive all that I was keeping in my heart. It has been and is still a journey but let me share a bit of what I am learning.
6. Let's Journey Together
In Matthew 18:22, Jesus says that we should forgive each other “seventy times seven times”. I was always very literal and I like clarity and God is very clear in His Word about forgiveness.
From the English definition we can also see that it is a verb... an action that is deliberate and purposeful and is made visible by the consequences meaning there is no vengeance, debts and wrongs are wiped off the slate and anger is abated.
And yet you and I have often struggled with actually forgiving people who slight us, hurt us, do wrong things or even omit to do the right things. It is hard to clear the slate for someone else. Harder still to clear it for oneself. Many times when there is a situation that makes me angry or resentful I have discovered that I am usually more angry at myself than the other person and that that anger towards myself is standing in the way of my letting things go. And why should I let things go?
Paul clarifies our basis for forgiveness in Ephesians 4:32
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
He reminds us that as Christian's we ought to be Christ like and that is part of it. That forgiveness is the gift that keeps on giving. That Christ gave it to us first.
Paul adds in Second Corinthians 5:18-19
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ.God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Again, a stewardship of this great act of love passed on to us by the Father himself.
This then makes reconciliation which is a more purposeful form of forgiveness part of our calling and Ministry. And again the reason is that He forgave us first. While we were yet sinners. His standard was set as David puts it in:
Psalm 103:12
“As far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
He then emphasizes the importance of us dealing with our own forgiveness and our reconciliation with Him in Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool"
Even when He invites us to His table the first order is to cleanse us. Unconditionally, intentionally and He delights in it.
In Psalm 51:7, 9 David says to the Lord,
“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
This is such an apt response to God's love. Because in His Presence our righteousness is like rags, our nakedness as in Eden is emphasized not by Him but by our own guilty hearts and our need for Him and His mercy brings us to our knees.
And as we repent and ask for forgiveness we are assured in First John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our unrighteousness.”
God is amazing. There is no where in the Word that He requires us to do something without explaining why we need to and the benefits...without reminding us that we can still exercise free will and without reminding us that His love is unconditional. There is nothing in the Word that He asks of us that is not for us. We are always in the center of His purpose, the focal point of His pursuit. The story of man and God in the Word is one long love story and it is mostly one sided because of how fickle we are sometimes.
So He continues with patience to encourage us to forgive others because in Matthew 6:14-15 Jesus says
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
7. Epilogue
It is not easy to forgive or even forget. But you can start somewhere. What are those things you are harboring in your heart? That have snuffed out the light in your life? Or dimmed it just a little. I would advise that you set out on this journey today.
1.Get a journal and start writing. Pour it all out...in form of a prayer as you ask your Father to heal those places in you and help you forgive those people. It will not happen overnight.
2. Practice telling people they have hurt you when they hurt you... not weeks after. It helps ease the healing process.
3. Ask yourself why you think that act hurt you. What is it in your life that makes you so sensitive to that kind of thing? A friend of mine used to hate being called silly etc be cause some kids bullied her earlier on and convinced her she was dumb... so any reference to words like that tore her up inside.
4. Forgive yourself... learn to allow yourself to fail. You are imperfect... that is why you need God. So while I do not advise that you wallow in a mess of failure, when you make a mistake correct it and move on. Do not condemn yourself.
"For there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus."
5. Do not use people's past mistakes to label them or your mistakes to label you. If Patricia lied to you last time don't keep reminding her and calling her a liar. Practice grace and deal with each hurt as a unique new one.
6. Get rid of conspiracy theories. People do not hate you. They just make mistakes.
I do hope you continue to let God heal you and take you down the wonderful everyday journey of forgiveness.
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