Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth. - Psalm 31:5

April 8, 1998 It wasn't easy deciding to post this. Some of what I've written here doesn't look like anything I've ever seen in any Christian literature. But it is real. It is where God has been meeting with me over the past couple of weeks. And I have to believe that it is a place that others have walked as well. Even if not very many have wanted to talk about it. I do want to clarify one point for those of you who know me very well: The person who prompted this situation is not anyone you might suspect. And I have deliberately altered some of what I originally wrote in my journal in order to keep that person anonymous. But the feelings and my interaction with God are genuine and unchanged. Joe

JOURNAL 3/26/98 I have to forgive F. It's taken me a long time to realize that. To see that there really is something there that needs to be forgiven, and to understand everything that is involved with forgiveness. To start with, forgiving means accepting the truth about what has happened. I can't cover it up, or refuse to look at it any longer. I have to face it. Yes, things may ultimately work out, and it may well end up better than I could possibly have imagined. But there is still a wound, and until I face the truth that what has been lost is gone for good, it will never be healed. And then, having accepted that the wound is there and that it is real and in a very real sense permanent, I have to consciously give up my right to get back at him. F is in God's hands, and I have to relinquish any claim to revenge. I even have to give up wanting to make him see how wrong he was, or to feel the pain of living a lie. I don't know when or if he will ever realize what he has done, although I do hope and pray that God will bring him to repentance soon. But whatever happens, I have to give up my right to be there when it happens. No matter what happens, or doesn't happen, between F and God, I need to forgive him. And Lord, unless you help me I know damn well I can't do that. He has hurt me too deeply for that. And the fact that he didn't intend to hurt me is pretty much irrelevant. It wasn't an accident. I got hurt because he rebelled against you and acted against your will. Nothing that I've ever experienced has been remotely this painful. Trust is gone - and to some degree it is probably gone forever. Even when this wound finally heals there will be an emotional scar that will remain for the rest of my life. F has hurt me badly, and I want him to know that. I want him to feel some of that hurt himself. I want him to know now, not in some future time, how thoroughly he has messed up. And I especially want him to wake up and realize that he has made a horrible mistake and know that he is now trapped in a situation that was never God's will. I want him to know that. I want him to feel it. I want him to feel the panic, the desperation, the sense of doom as he waits and watches for the end of his dreams, knowing he is powerless to do anything about it. I want him to hurt, as I have been hurt. And God, I don't know how to stop wanting it. I am in conflict over this Lord. I don't want to forgive, but I know that I have to. Please show me how to do this! How can I possibly forgive an injury so deep that it is beyond all my power to forgive? You tell me that I have to forgive F, and out of obedience I am willing to do so. But how? How do I let this go? How do I stop thinking about how much I want him to know what he's done; to feel trapped by his choices; to feel sorry. That's the part that's beyond me. How do I forgive someone who doesn't feel the least bit sorry for what he has done? You say you want me to forgive him. Fine. But if that's really what you want, than you're going to have to change something in my heart and in my mind, because right now I don't have a clue how to bring this about.

JOURNAL 3/30/98 John 13:34. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is ridiculous. It is impossible. I can't do this. I can't love F the way Jesus loves me. It's too big for me. I used to think I could, but I can't. How can I love someone I can't trust? Lord. Father. You ask me to be like Jesus. But I'm not like Jesus. I'm not loving enough, or gracious enough, or forgiving enough to do what you want me to do. I don't want to forgive F. I want to punish him. I want to rub his face in the mistakes he has made; the things he has done wrong; the way he has screwed up my life, as well as his own. I want him to feel some of the pain he has caused to others. And yet I also want to do what you want me to. Not for F: he's not remotely worth the effort. I want to do it to please you. But I'm not good enough. Love, grace, forgiveness; these things might be possible for you, but not for me. I can't do it. What you ask is beyond me.

JOURNAL 4/7/98 I want to forgive F. Only, part of me still doesn't. The wound is still there, no matter what I do. And the anger. I understand completely the feelings that inspired this passage: Psalm 137:8-9. O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. And yet I also want to be able to say with Jesus. Luke 23:34. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. I want both: justice and forgiveness. For my sake, I have to forgive F. Watching him suffer isn't going to bring me peace. A measure of satisfaction perhaps, but not peace. If I ever want to be at peace over what has happened, I need to forgive him. Nothing else will do it. There is a part inside me - a much bigger part that I want to admit - that will be very happy when he gets what's coming to him. And if I feed that part of me, it's going to grow into a deep bitterness against F, against life in general, and against God. F is going to get hurt no matter what I do. That's the road he has chosen to walk down. But the road I've been choosing is going to hurt me, not him. And yet I don't want to give up being angry. It feels good. It feels just to want to see F get hurt. He hurt others, now let him feel some of that pain himself. And because it feels so good to be angry I have to keep my own wound open. Because if it starts to heal, if it no longer hurts as badly as it did, I can no longer justify being so angry with him. In order to get the satisfaction that I want from watching F get hurt I have to keep hurting myself, over and over again. Is the satisfaction worth the pain? A few days ago I would have said yes. Now, I don't know. It still feels like it's worth it, but I hope that it isn't, because I really don't think I want to live in a world like that. I want to live in a world; I want to believe in a world; where things do work out for good in the end. Where pain has meaning. Where forgiveness is stronger than revenge. I want to believe that in the long run nothing is ever truly out of control. That God really does know what he's doing. But no matter how real and how close that kind of world may be, it won't be the world I am living in until I am willing to forgive F. © 1998, Joe Jefferson. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to make copies for ministry purposes, provided no fee is charged and this copyright notice is included.