Forgiveness and Healing
Dear readers, I just wanted to share a chapter in my upcoming autobiography on ‘Forgiveness and Healing’.
Healing comes after total forgiveness.
In this chapter I am going to look at:
What forgiveness is
What forgiveness is not.
What unforgiveness can do to you.
How to forgive
How you know you have forgiven
1. What forgiveness is
Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim (person wronged) undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offence, lets go of negative emotions such as vengefulness or expects and wishes for punishment of the offender, however legally or morally justified it might be, and with an increased ability to wish the offender well.
2. What forgiveness is NOT
Forgiveness is different from:
Condoning - failing or refusing to see the action as wrong and being in need of forgiveness
Excusing - not holding the offender as responsible for the action
Forgetting - removing awareness of the offense from one’s consciousness
Pardoning - whereby a representative of society such as a judge, steps in and grants an acknowledgement of the offence
Reconciliation -restoration of a relationship. I know this may sound tough to some readers but yes, it is not a must and sometimes, not advisable to return to the same situation, person(s) that brought about the offence in the first place especially if they have not stopped their actions towards the wronged person.
Reconciliation can be done but wisdom and care should be applied and clear judgement of the situation to see if it is ideally wise and safe for someone to get back with those causing them harm and refusing to stop doing so to them or to a situation or place where their harm is coming from.
One can forgive and move on. It is OK. This means the person puts everything out of their lives and stops talking about the issues and the perpetrator(s).
In most contexts, forgiveness is granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender. For example, one may forgive a person who is dead, or still alive but is not willing to acknowledge their actions to the person wronged.
In real practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of acknowledgment, an apology, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe themselves able to forgive as well, but this is rare. It takes humility on the part of the offender to do this.
No one, not even God I believe, expects anyone to continue to stay with or get back with someone who for instance subjects them to an unending continuous emotional, psychological or physical abuse.
The emotional and psychological abuse will eventually turn them into a mental invalid. It doesn’t only affect all aspects of the person, their family and friends but society at large. They end up needing care as they wouldn’t be able to do that for themselves any longer, accessing public funds as they wouldn’t be able to function in a job, they wouldn’t be able to carry their duty and responsibilities as a spouse and parent resulting in a dysfunctional family unit with children ultimately becoming the same. Then they do the same things done to them or not done for them by their parents to their own spouses and children. Those children carry on the legacy of dysfunctional family unit. Society is affected, economy affected, loss of manpower and the burden upon the government to step in to help.
The physical abuse in most cases ends up in the death of the victim if they continued to stay with or got back to the perpetrator.
You can forgive and move on. You are not obliged to remain with the perpetrator in an abusive relationship whichever type of relationship it may be. Intimate, friendship, professional or spiritual. Emotional and psychological abuse is the worst and most hidden from every else outside of the victim. It may be observed at times by immediate family members and some close relatives or friends but often times it gets missed and quiet hidden from everyone purposely by the perpetrator. They are skilled in doing this. They isolate the victim, remove all possible help from them by lying to their friends, family members, relatives, acquaintances and bosses as well as colleagues about the victim, portraying them as mentally unbalanced and not to be listened to or believed. Flips off the coin as them being abused by the victim to gain sympathy and support from all these people, with the victim becoming ostracised by all of them, viewed as a very bad person from what they are told by the perpetrator and ultimately shun the victim and isolate them, doing exactly what the perpetrator wanted.
God understands sees this, He understands the reasons why reconciliation is not always the solution and is not proof of forgiveness. Forgives happens in the heart first. The offended takes a heart decision to forgive and release the offender and move on with their life.
True genuine forgiveness is not easy. It takes the help of the Holy Spirit.
3. What unforgiveness can do to you
Consequences of staying with unforgiveness:
It affects relationships
It breeds negative emotions
It promotes distrust, which leads to isolation and separation
It causes division
It affects your health - physically and mentally.
People who live with unforgiveness are prone to heart disease, ulcers, gastritis, cancer, asthma, and colitis. Research has shown that chronically angry people die at a younger age than non-hostile people.
Mentally, it makes the person harbour grudges which survives on anger, when things don’t change, the anger is turned inward, leading to depression and anxiety. If depression is not properly addressed, part of which can be by forgiving, then it can trigger underlying severe depressive conditions like Bipolar mood disorders or in some cases Schizophrenic symptoms and suicide.
Don’t get me wrong. These conditions can be caused by chemical imbalances but will be aggravated by unforgiveness.
Bitterness causes one to stay in fight and flight mode.
It creates feelings of doom and gloom, irrational fears, unwarranted guilt and these will come out in speeches and non-verbal behaviours. Words become sharp and biting, harsh and hurtful. Communication is conveyed with bluntness and requests are barked at people.
Psychologically, it affects your perspective on things. You expect doom and gloom. You expect to be treated bad. You write people off. If the perpetrator is a teacher, all teachers are bad, if it is a Priests, all priests are bad, if it’s a man all men are bad, if it’s a woman, all women are bad. The list goes on. Satan will always find instruments to use in all situation to reinforce this.
Spiritually, it can affect how you see God. It reverses what God says about His love for His people including you. You tend to think that God has favourites like people do. You tend to think that God, like people, will only like you when you do things for Him, when you are being good and when things are going well.
He becomes unpredictable just as people are. His love depends on your ‘goodness’. This affects your trust in Him.
You make Him to be causing bad things to happen to you, as if He is punishing you. Like people do. Scripture can become blurry.
Satan thrives on this. He will work overtime to make sure you never get to grasp the unconditional, unending love of God that is there always, despite what you do and what you don’t do.
The only unfortunate thing is that oftentimes there is no help in the church for these kind of people. They are often labelled as, and in most cases publicly to be problematic, hindrances to the work of God, burdens, high maintenance, unbelieving, immature, critical, hateful, bitter, angry and weak. In as much as all these characteristics may be true at that time, they don’t remain like that forever and they don’t deserve all those name calling and labels as well as being blamed for what is not going well in the church or whatever organisation. That’s the last thing they need. They need help. They need love. Some people have left church as a result. As the scripture says “ we then that are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
“Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.”
- Romans 15:1-2 KJV.
The ultimate effect on relationships:
Marriages break
Families separate
Friendships end
Work is affected
Trust is lost.
When to forgive:
Biblically, it’s as soon as it is possible. Humanly speaking, do it as soon as your conscience reminds you.
“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath”.
- Ephesians 4:26 KJV
4. How to forgive
There are many ways to exercise forgiveness, here are four ways you can do it:
If you are lucky, the offender may initiates a move through their conscience and ask for forgiveness. This is the easiest way to settle things but unfortunately many offenders never do. That’s the reason Jesus wrote this verse. “Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come” Luke 17:1. You will notice here that Jesus emphasised His message not only on the fact that offence will come but more on the fact that those through whom they come are at a more worse state.
Writing a letter to the offender especially if they are deceased. You can write all that you wanted to say to them, if you had the opportunity to say it when they were still alive. Read it out loud either by yourself or in the presence of someone. And then destroy the letter. Note that the dead person will never get to know about it but this tends to promote a feeling of a clear conscience on your part and brings the much needed healing.
You can do it verbally or telephonically only if you know the person knows about the wrong they have done. Otherwise it can create a mess. There are psychopathic, narcissistic and antisocial people out there, who thrive on hurting others. It has become so much a part of them that they don’t feel anything any longer after they’ve done or said something bad to another human being. Their consciences are dead. These are those you will need to just forgive without bothering to approach them and don’t consider reconciling with them as they are toxic. God will see your good heart and you will be rewarded for it.
You can do it through a third person, a mediator. This could be a counsellor, a friend, church leader, neighbour, relative or anyone willing to take part in this.
Why Forgive
From a Christian perspective - it’s a MUST and NOT AN OPTION!
Forgiveness is not an option to a Christian, rather one must forgive to be a Christian. Forgiveness in Christianity is a manifestation of submission to Christ and fellow believers.
God demonstrated a whole lot of examples of forgiveness throughout the Bible.
Here are some examples below:
In Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses”
In Matthew 6:14–15 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Jesus speaks of the importance of Christians forgiving or showing mercy towards others. Jesus used the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21–35), to say that we should forgive without limits.
Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 is the best known parable about forgiveness and refers to God's forgiveness for His people.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly spoke of forgiveness,
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”.
Matthew 5:7 KJV
“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.” Luke 6:27–29.
Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful." Luke 6:36
Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Luke 6:37(b)
Last but not least, it is said, "Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." Matthew 18:21–22
Lastly, Jesus asked for God's forgiveness of those who crucified him.
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they divided His garments and cast lots.”
- Luke 23: 34 NKJV
The greatest forgiveness was when God forgave all humanity by providing a sacrifice for their sins to obtain salvation.
“ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
- John 3:16 NKJV
5. How do you know you have forgiven
When you can speak of the offence from a point of reference as opposed to a point of pain.
When you talk about the issue, you don’t hurt any more.
The reason you mention the deeds, is to help others without mentioning the perpetrator or offender’s name.
When you sincerely love the perpetrator and want the best for them. You pray for them just as God commanded.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV
God will always send someone to you when you least expect.
Another way to know you have forgiven is to serve and bless the perpetrator. Help them where they need help. Do things for them. NB ONLY if the perpetrator is a normal person and doesn’t fit the criteria for narcissism, antisocial personality and psychopathic personality. These ones, you forgive and remove yourselves from them. They will cause you great and if you stay too long, permanent emotional and psychological even physical damage.
When you see them or hear their voice or think about them and what they did and perhaps still doing to you, you feel sorry for them, feel empathetic towards them as truly speaking they are the one suffering, not you. The hatred of you that causes them to do things to you is causing them unhappiness, hurt and loss of peace. It’s something great about you that makes them jealous and envious of you. They constantly secretly compare themselves with you only to realise they are way short of your good natural traits and virtues. That’s when you begin to sincerely pray for them. It’s hard to do this when you are still hurting and offended.
The other way is not talking about and not finding yourself itching to tell everyone about the offence.
When revenge, paying back and retaliation becomes not an issue any longer to you.
It’s natural for all humanity at first instance to have hard feelings towards those who offend us. You don’t think twice about it. It takes prayer, meditation on the Word of God and truly wanting the best of God for you and them to get to a point where you are free of thoughts and acts of retaliation and revenge.
When you have come out of the denial phase. That is, you have stopped using the defence of “I moved on, I let it all go” when you truly know that what you did was just to put it under the carpet, and deny you are hurting.
The virtue of honesty helps you to face up to the fact that you are still hurting and you need God to help heal. Accept that the pain is there and as long as the pain is still there, you have not let go but are in denial. Denial is very similar to avoidance. Avoiding the truth of the situation. It’s normal to hurt when offended or attacked, God understands this. But you need to pray for healing and come out of the hurt as quickly as possible.
When you fully accept that God loves the offender just as much as He loves you.
As human beings, we tend to think that God hates bad people. He hates their actions and deeds but not the person. The moment you are able to separate the deed from the person, you will be able to love them just as God loves them. Remember that God doesn’t see them as different from you. Both of you are in need of His mercy in different areas. Just as much as He loves you despite your own shortcomings, He loves the perpetrator the same way despite their shortcomings.
I am not the expert in this topic however my personal experiences have led me through the road of forgiveness.
All the best,
Sarah Moloi
