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Unit 11 Open the Door to Forgiveness
Lewis B. Smedes
It’s surgery of the soul, the loving, healing way to create new beginnings out of past pain.
1.
Someone hurt you, maybe yesterday, maybe long ago, and you cannot forget it. You did not
deserve the hurt and it has lodged itself in your memory, where it keeps on hurting.
2.
You are not alone. We all muddle our way through a world where even well-meaning people
hurt one another. A friend betrays us; a parent abuses us; a spouse leaves us.
3.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt believes that the only power that can stop the stream of painful
memories is the “faculty of forgiving”. In that spirit, one December day in 1983, Pope John
Paul II
walked
into
a
cell
of
Rebibbia
prison outside Rome
to
meet Mehmet
Ali
Agca.
The
Pope took the hand of the man who had tried to kill him, and forgave him.
4.
For
most
of
us,
however,
it
is
not
easy
to
forgive.
Forgiving
seems
almost
unnatural.
Our
sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. But in forgiving we can
move from hurting and hating to healing and reconciliation.
5.
Hate is our natural response to deep and unfair hurts. A woman wishes her former husband
would be miserable with his new wife. A man whose friend has betrayed him hopes the friend
will
be
fired
from
his
job.
Hate
is
a
malignancy
that
festers
and
grows,
stifling
joy
and
threatening our health. It hurts the hater more than the hated. It must be cut out
—
for our
own sake.
6.
How can this be done? How can you let go of a hurt, the way a child opens his hands
and
frees a trapped butterfly? Here are guidelines to help you begin to forgive:
7.
Confront your malice.
None of us wants to admit that we hate someone, so we hide it from
ourselves.
But
the
fury
denied
rages
beneath
the
surface
and
infects
all
our
relationships.
Admitting
our
hate
compels
us
to
make
a
decision
about
the
surgery
of
the
soul
we
call
forgiving.
We
must
acknowledge
what
has
happened,
face
up
to
the
other
person
and
say:
“You did me wrong.”
8.
Liz was an assistant professor of biology at a university in California. She was a good teacher,
and the chairman of her department promised to ask the dean to promote her. Instead, his
report was so critical of her performance that the dean advised her to look for another job.
9.
Liz hated the chairman for betraying her, but she needed a recommendation from him. When
he
said
how
sorry
he
was
that
his
support
could
not
convince
the
dean,
she
pretended
to
believe
him.
But
she
could
not
keep
up
the
duplicity.
One
day
she
confronted
him.
His
embarrassed denial enabled Liz to see him for the weak person he was. She began to feel the
power she needed to forgive him and, in her decision to do so, was set free of her hate.
10.
Separate
the
wrongdoer
from
the
wrong.
The
Bible
describes,
in
the
ancient
drama
of
1
atonement, how
God took a bundle of human sins off man’s back, tied it to a goat, and sent
the “scapegoat” to a “solitary land”. Forgiving is finding a new vision of the person who has
wronged
us,
the
person
stripped
of
his
sins
—
who
really
lives
beneath
the
cloak
of
his
wrongdoing.
11.
The first gift we get when we separate the wrong from the wrongdoer is insight. As we come
to see the deeper truth about people
—
that they are fallible
—
our feelings change. At 16 my
adopted daughter, Cathy, was a hothead who bitterly resented her natural mother for giving
her away. Why had she not been worth keeping? Then she found out that her parents had
been very young and poor and not married.
12.
About this time, one of Cathy’s friends became pregnant and, in fear and doubt, gave up her
ba
by
for
adoption.
Cathy
shared
her
friend’s
conflict,
and
was
sure
her
decision
had
been
right. Gradually she came to feel that her own mother, too, had done the right thing
—
she
had
given
her
baby
away
because
she
loved
her
too
much
to
keep
her.
Cathy’s
n
ew
understanding brought her resentment down to forgiving size.
13.
Let go of the past. A friend of mine, a beautiful actress, was left crippled by a car accident a
few years ago. Her husband stayed with her until she had partially recovered. Then, coldly, he
left her.
14.
She could have mortgaged her future to hate. Instead, she forgave her husband and wished
him well. I was skeptical. “Suppose he married a sexy young starlet. Would you wish him to
be happy with her?”
15.
“Yes, I would,” she answered.
16.
This does not mean my friend has entirely forgotten the hurt. In fact, forgetting too soon may
be
a dangerous way
to
escape forgiving’s
inner
surgeries.
Once
we
have forgiven,
however,
forgetting is a sign of health. We can forget, eventually, because we are healed.
17.
Don’t
give up on forgiveness
—
keep working at it. As a boy, the British scholar C. S. Lewis
was badly hurt by a bully of a teacher. For most of his life he could not forgive the teacher and
this troubled him. But not long before he died, he wrote to a friend:
“Only a few weeks ago, I
realized
suddenly
that
I
had
at
last
forgiven
the
cruel
schoolmaster
who
so
darkened
my
childhood. I’d been trying to do it for years, and each time I thought I’d done it, I found it had
to be attempted again. But this time I feel
sure it is the real thing.”
18.
The hate habit is hard to break. We usually break it many times before we finally get rid of it.
And the deeper the hurt, the longer it can take. But slowly it happens.
19.
Persuasive arguments have been made against forgiving. Some say that forgiveness is unjust
because
the
wrongdoer
should
not
be
let
off
the
hook.
Others
say
forgiveness
is
a
sign
of
weakness. Bernard Shaw called it “a beggar’s refuge”.
20.
I
disagree.
Vengeance
never
evens
the
score.
It
ties
both
the
injured
and
the
injurer
to
an
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