by Tim Holler
This morning I spoke sharply, rudely, to my daughter. She just walked away and I went on about my business, my business of praying. That’s right, I was praying. When I came to myself, I called her and apologized. With zero hesitation, she said, “I forgive you.”
That hurt! And it was healing. It wasn’t what she said, it’s what she didn’t say. She didn’t say, “It’s ok. I understand. No big deal. I didn’t even notice.” She didn’t say, “Don’t worry about it. We all do stuff like that!” Just, “I forgive you.”
That simple expression spoke volumes about what it means for two people to be in relationship. I’m sorry…I forgive you. How simple!
But more often than not, we complicate these experiences with fear and expectations and stories about what the other person is thinking and feeling about what we are thinking and feeling about what they are thinking and feeling about what we are thinking and feeling about what they are thinking and feeling about…
What the heck! When does it stop? It’s exhausting! And many of us don’t even know we’re doing it. We’ve never done anything else. In fact, we think it’s just good manners to be considerate of others and not offend.
We explain our constant concern over the feelings of other people as a personality type or even giftedness.
But as a result, we have lost the awareness of ourselves and who we are in relation to God and the rest of humanity. We think being “nice” is the same thing as being “kind”.
It might be nice to say to someone who apologized to you, “It’s ok, I’ve done the same thing myself.” But is it kind to say, “I forgive you”? Even if it hurts?
I know that we are genetically and socially wired to avoid pain, but, as every parent, teacher, coach will tell you, if a child, student, athlete doesn’t experience pain he or she will not grow.
Hurting and tolerance for pain are essential for growth and becoming what we are meant to be: fully human.
It helps to be confronted with our humanity. The more human we become, the more God’s glory shines. The more human we become, the more God’s will is done on earth like it’s done in heaven.