Forgiveness without bondage...

A dear friend spoke the words tonight that still take my breath away: "I forgive you."  She spoke them slowly, deliberately, almost as if wrapping me up in them like you would swaddling a fractious baby in the softest, most comforting blanket.

I was upset. I was talking about things that are overwhelming.  And I was ashamed.

At first, my friend was telling me the thinking things that I need to hear...that it was not my fault, not my sin, not my shame in that feeling shame is normal, but I am not shameful.  I needed/need to hear those things.  But I also needed to hear that she forgave me.  Only, when I started talking to her, I did not know this, did not understand this, myself.

Understand.  Honestly, in many ways, I am beginning to believe that it is absolutely unimportant for you to understand why someone asks for forgiveness. The sole importance lies in that, if asked, you give it.  Of course, in this case, you would have to listen closely to what is being said to understand that that was what I was asking.

My oldest friend is clearly a good listener.

I was thinking, though, that it strange she grant me this on a night when I essentially did not do the same for a friend who asked me to forgive him.  I told him there was nothing to forgive.  He had not wronged me.  Not once did I stop to consider if he needed forgiveness. I had bound forgiveness to a law of my own making.

My friend saw no wrong in me, in my actions.  In truth, I almost could agree with her.  Perhaps. Well, one day I might get there.  What fills my heart with anguish, though, in telling her what I told her was that I did not admit such at the time.  I was too afraid.  After two decades of friendship I still did not trust that if she knew this terrible thing she would remain my friend.  So, while I did not out right speak a lie to her, I lied by action and omission for many years.

My dear friend pointed out that there is a good reason for my actions.  And they were not, in fact, really my actions.  For I had no structure from which to learn that it would be safe to trust her, by which to actually trust.  She is right.  Only all I see is that what I had known for two decades was something so foreign, so puzzling: her unconditional love.  The very absence of the things I had experienced elsewhere should have been the indicator that she would not turn away from me, would not be horrified and heap upon me more shame, when I was already burdened beyond words.

Only, now, in this moment, grappling with the shame and the fear of revealing what I did, not only was hearing that we were still friends needful, but that she forgave me for lying to her.  It matters not that she believes that I lied.  Perhaps, the day will come when I no longer believe so, too.  But right now, in this moment, it was not mere acceptance and reassurance that I needed, but also forgiveness.

She told me, "I forgive you."  Then my friend said that God forgives me, she forgives me, and I knew what was left.  I am not sure forgiving myself is exactly what lies next, although one might believe that to be the logical conclusion.  I wonder if what lies next is actually realigning my perspective in order that I might see clearly the truth of the situation.

But now, this day, this moment, I needed to know that she forgave me the past and what transpired then is not accounted to me now.

In speaking to her, I practiced speaking something hidden.  Doing so was rather horrible, awash in shame and trembling with my whole being.  I was talking to her from the back steps and Amos came over and wedged his body between mine and the step above me.  My puppy dog's perceptions of my needs astounds me, humbles me.  His presence made the moment ever so slightly easier to bear.  But the speaking was really only possible because I had already been given forgiveness.

You see, in her speaking the word of forgiveness, in bestowing that gift without my asking in the normal manner, I knew that were I to reveal that which I had still kept hidden on the matter, the forgiveness would remain.  By this I mean, in her words, I heard the Living Word, I heard my Savior telling me that I was forgiven.  And the forgiveness of Christ is not but one moment in time, but for all times.

I do not mean to say that if I had, in fact, asked her to forgive me, I would never need to do so again.  But something within me recognized that she was not merely saying that I was forgiven for the time I mentioned, but for all the times I struggled with fear and shame and kept such hidden from her, pretended to be other than I was.

Her grief was not that I did such things, but the loss of the freedom I could have had, for had I spoken then she could have helped me to understand the truth of the matter.

What amazes me about this evening, truly, is that she and I have not been close.  That a confluence of events and my fears took this person who was my sister from me for a few years.  A while ago, I called her...afraid...because I miss her in almost a primal way.  Mostly, I believe that I called her for wholly selfish reasons.  She no longer needs my friendship, but I need hers.  I want to know...need to know...is it possible to really and truly be forgiven, that a relationship broken, ended, can truly be mended, made whole, and restored.  I need a connection to at least one part of my youth.  And I need her memory.

We are different people now.  Friends for over two decades, we are actually just getting to know each other.  All those years, we were single women together and now she is married.  All those years, I was living, in essence, a double life.  We talk on her day off and I find the conversations at once awkward and comforting.

I have a few people in my life who understand how needful it is for me to hear that I am forgiven, that I am baptized and therefore am forgiven.  But I also need to hear "I forgive you."  I wonder if, perhaps, the defacto response to any painful, difficult admission ought to be those words.

Dr. Beverly Yahnke has this rather amazing paper: When Death Seduces the Living.  It is about suicidal folk, but I believe all but one of her list of 10 things a pastor should do in serving as seelsorge for a suicidal parishioner actually applies to all deeply wounded parishioners.  One point she makes resonates so deeply within me I wish I could put it on a note card and hold it out to all pastors, almost as if a deaf or mute person might have a ready message to aid in communication.

She tells pastors that when parishioners confess feelings, they should be forgiven.  I have had two pastors tell me that they would not forgive feelings. I have not the words to explain how the weight that withholding of absolution added to my already overburdened heart, but what I can explain is the why of the confession of feelings to a pastor by a deeply wounded or suicidal person.  The why is so very simple: what lies beneath.  What lies beneath the confession of feelings is an acknowledgment of sin, primarily an acknowledgement of unbelief, which for the believer already struggling merely compounds the chaos, the confusion, and the despair.

Perhaps I am the only one who struggles with giving forgiveness because she has bound doing so to false laws, chief amongst them being having to understand the request before granting it.  Perhaps.

But maybe I am not.  Maybe the truth is that we, being sinners, who basically like to bootstrap ourselves out of hell--at least on some level--by merit or worth or act, have a nature that simply cannot grasp forgiveness given by grace, by unmerited favor.  And so we bind forgiveness with any number of laws.  Were such the case, then, offering forgiveness to the broken, despairing, fearful, ashamed brother or sister, without being asked, most certainly should be our first response.  For really, is not forgiveness all about the one being forgiven?  If we make a law about having to understand their need, their request, their anguish, their confusion, their fear before we bestow that gift, it would follow that those who are in need of forgiveness most probably would never receive it. Especially if you also agree with my theory of listening to difficult things...that we are so busy trying not to place ourselves in the story we fail  to listen to, we fail to hear, what is being said.

I did not ask.
Yet she heard me beg for forgiveness
And she gave it

How many people have I not heard?


Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.