Forgiveness and Honesty

Forgiveness

There are many things I want to teach my children. Some things are easy to teach them because they make sense. You know...don't smear your poop on the carpet because then your room will stink. (For the record we're on day two of this lesson with Declan right now. He's a hardcore nudist....wonder where he gets it. ) Some of the lessons I want them to learn aren't easy to teach because I don't fully understand them myself. Forgiveness is one of those lessons I'm still working on. I think it's one of those things that is hard for a lot of people to understand because they aren't quite sure what forgiveness entails. 

See for me, there's an enormous amount of difference between forgiving someone for their sin or fault and giving them an opening to repeat the offense. The thing about forgiveness is that you have to mean it too. You can't tell someone you forgive them for breaking your mother's priceless china and then every time you get into a fight after that you bring up how they break everything that means a lot to you. It also matters how big the offense is that a person is being forgiven for. You really need to think about the fault before you extend your forgiveness. You can't take back wiping the slate clean. 

Let's really examine this for a minute...

I sometimes inwardly cringe whenever I hear someone utter the phrase "I forgive you". Mostly I do that because I'm witnessing a trainwreck of a relationship between two human beings who obviously don't know what it means to forgive or to be forgiven. We have some pretty good examples of forgiveness in the Bible. (Uh ... anyone heard of that Jesus guy? Yep...thought so). That whole "Forgive them father for they know not what they do thing" tends to stay with you. The son of God, after being brutally tortured for hours and hours spent some of his last moments on this earth praying to the Lord to forgive mankind. Now, that alone makes me sit up and take notice that maybe this whole forgiveness thing is more important than let on. But I also think we need to make some real concessions with regard to forgiveness. 

• Forgiveness is about you, not the other person. It doesn't make you some kind, benevolent, ultra human for extending forgiveness. 
• Forgiveness is about letting go of anger, pain, regret. It's soul cleansing. 
• Forgiveness means acknowledging that people are all flawed and taking these facts into consideration. 

Which brings me to my next point...

People are idiots. Okay..not all people. That's just silly. Honestly, we are all living our own truth. Every single person on the planet has a unique story and journey. Experience isn't universal so there will never be anyone who will truly understand your purpose, motivation and drive. There are bound to be misunderstandings. The best way I know to combat that is to be honest about things and as straightforward as the situation will allow you to be. Now with parenting that's a little bit tricky. I want to be honest about why I don't want my kids to do drugs or drink heavily but how much do I tell them? And what about when it's not my story to tell?

Forgiveness is hard because it goes against so many other things I want to teach my children. I want to teach my son to respect his relationships and teach my daughter that she deserves respect and fair treatment. I want them to respect their bodies, stand up for what they believe in, have morals, standards and to love openly. And if they make a mistake, I want them to know that there is forgiveness available and that they do deserve it if they are genuine in their contrition. I am just scared of them using forgiveness in the wrong way, as a weapon against reason and good sense. 

I've seen women in abusive relationships say through a busted lip and black eye 'but he said he was sorry'. I've seen good men cheated on, who have taken the woman back over and over all because she 'was sorry'. I've seen people do terrible things to one another and think that 'sorry' is the magic balm that makes it all better again. They think that they can continue to do horrible things as long as they say sorry after they've done it. 

Can I be honest? 

I have some great recommendations for forgiveness in my family. I also have some examples of people who will never learn their lesson. Relationships between parents and children, between spouses, between friends ....they're complex. Conflict sometimes arises because two people who are decent human beings separately are in a relationship dynamic that forces them into high stress situations where no one comes out looking good. 

When my son was born, my dad, who I did not have a good relationship with called to reconcile. He made a big deal of wiping the slate clean and I did so for the sake of my son. I issued forgiveness without even really forcing the conversation of what I was forgiving. I learned four months after my son was born, when we visited him, that this was a mistake on my part. I never articulated how I was hurt, the damage that was done, the emotional turmoil. I thought having a baby meant you should be extending the olive branch. The thing about that situation was that he didn't ask forgiveness for himself. Everytime something was brought up even in the remotest terms, he deflected or acted as though it never happened. It seemed to me that he'd rather pretend he was always the perfect father than acknowledge that he had done wrong. When approached he'd throw up the "we're putting the past behind us" roadblock and I knew I'd been hasty with my forgiveness.

But I do believe forgiveness is important. I do forgive him in the sense that I'm not allowing what he did to hold sway over me anymore. I don't let my mind stray to the hard moments. I don't seethe in anger when I talk to him on the phone. I listen with as much compassion as I can, while ultimately knowing that my relationship with my father will never be what my children have with theirs. I've made peace with it. I won't allow that to color his relationship with his grandchildren, but I also will be honest with them about it when they're old enough. If he backslides into toxitcity, I will not allow it to affect my kids. That's the price we pay for forgiveness. 

Part of the solace I do find in my relationship with God is that there is forgiveness. I know that I make mistakes and if I do so and seek forgiveness God will bestow it. Some people think it's a trite sort of cliche the whole forgiveness thing...that you can do whatever you want and God will just make it okay. But I don't act without thinking. For me, the fact that there is forgiveness just makes me want to be a better person. That God has forgiven me once is enough. I want to make it my mission to not need to say 'sorry'. I want to make sure that when I do have to say sorry it is because I mean it with my entire being. In our house, I want forgiveness to mean something and to be bestowed with thought and care.  My hope is that my children learn that forgiveness is healing but ultimately I hope that they live in such a way that they need not be forgiven for huge injustices. I hope we can teach them the compassion and strength of spirit to be able to forgive others and open the door to peace and serenity. 

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.