Responsibility is Power.

Forgiveness, Growth, Life 0

When I talk about responsibility, I am really talking about having power.  Blame is about giving away one’s power.  Responsibility gives us the power to make changes in our lives.  If we play the victim role, then we are using our personal power to be helpless.  If we decide to accept responsibility, then we don’t waste time blaming somebody or something out there. . . .

If we can use our problems and illnesses as opportunities to think about how we can change our lives, we have power.

Louise L. Hay, The Power Is Within You, p. 5

Forgiveness, a Comprehensive Topic

Forgiveness, Growth 0

When I first turned my attention to forgiveness, it seemed a worthwhile, if unexciting, topic.  But as I immersed myself, I realized that forgiveness is as fundamental and important as any topic in psychology.  There are few places it can’t take you.  It embraces the meaning of love and hate, the nature of dependency, the torments of envy, the problems of narcissism and paranoia, as well as the tension between self-hatred and self-acceptance, between striving for maturity and refusing to grow up. . . .

In our capacity or failure to forgive we reveal our ability to recognize the humanity in someone who has hurt or disappointed us, as well as to see our own limitations and complicity.  It represents an ability to imagine what life is like on the other side of the fence, where another human being is engaged in his own struggle, to let go of the expectation that people exist to be just what we need them to be.  And this sensibility applies to our view of ourselves, too:  for forgiving others is nothing but the mirror image of forgiving oneself.  Significant acts of forgiveness also entail letting go of a precious story we tell about ourselves, risking the awareness of a larger, less self-justifying truth.

What we do in the realm of forgiveness . . . speaks to the magnitude of our self-centeredness and the extent to which we organize the world into a simple pattern of good versus bad, as opposed to a more mature ability to tolerate ambiguity and ambivalence.  In the capacity to forgive we see our largeness of heart.  And, in struggling to forgive what is most difficult for us to forgive, we reveal our courage, imagination, and potential for growth.  The development of forgiveness is, I now think, as clear a marker of general psychological development as there is.

— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self, p. 9-10

A Higher Way

Forgiveness, God, Gratitude, Praising God, Trials 0

It is not punishment.  God never punishes.  And He well knows how you have been longing to do His will.  This sickness has been given you as a loving message to help you understand that there was a still higher and more heavenly way of reacting to the wounds and troubles that you were experiencing than you knew about.  Certainly God gave you a glorious victory even though your feelings were so wounded; you were delivered from resentment and were able to accept it all with forgiveness.  But perhaps there was a little self-pity because you did not realize about the glorious principle I have been sent to share with you.  For there is a still higher level of acceptance possible, and that is to accept everything that happens with praise, thanksgiving, and joy, knowing that every seeming affliction is really a blessing in disguise.  God allows only the very best things possible to happen to you at any particular time; that is to say, exactly the things and situations that are best fitted to help you, because they afford you the opportunity of reacting just as Jesus did.  Learning by His grace to react with praise and thanksgiving even to things that appear most evil, unjust, cruel, and deplorable, because God is allowing this opportunity to bring good out of evil, is just like waving a magic wand over an evil enchantment and being able to replace cruel spells with heavenly miracles.

— Hannah Hurnard, Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places, p. 56-57

Forgiveness as a Way of Being

Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Forgiveness is an aspect of the workings of love.  It can be a bridge back from hatred and alienation as well as a liberation from two kinds of hell: bitterness and victimhood on one side; guilt, shame, and self-recrimination on the other.  The wish to repair a wounded relationship, whether it takes the form of forgiveness, apology, or some other bridging gesture, is a basic human impulse.  The need to forgive — which may grow out of understanding, gratitude, sympathy, regret over the hurt one has caused, or simply a wish to reunite — may be as strong as the need to be forgiven, even if it comes upon us more subtly.

All sustained relationships depend to some extent on forgiveness.  Successful marriage means an inevitable round of disappointment, anger, withdrawal, repair.  People hurt each other no matter how much love they share, and it’s a truism that the greatest hurts are meted out by the closest of intimates.  No friendship, no marriage, no family connections of any kind would last if the silent reparative force of forgiveness were not working almost constantly to counteract the incessant corrosive effects of resentment and bitterness, which would otherwise tear us apart.  Without forgiveness there could be no allowance for human frailty.  We would keep moving on, searching for perfect connections with mythical partners who would never hurt or disappoint.  In that sense, forgiveness should be thought of not only as a discrete event but also as a way of being.

— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection, p. 5-6

Forgiveness and Boundaries

Forgiveness, Relationships, Uncategorized 0

Warning:  Forgiveness and opening up to more abuse are not the same thing.  Forgiveness has to do with the past.  Reconciliation and boundaries have to do with the future.  Limits guard my property until someone has repented and can be trusted to visit again.  And if they sin, I will forgive again, seventy times seven.  But I want to be around people who honestly fail me, not dishonestly deny that they have hurt me and have no intent to do better.  That is destructive for me and for them.  If people are owning their sin, they are learning through failure.  We can ride that out.  They want to be better, and forgiveness will help.  But if someone is in denial, or only giving lip service to getting better, without trying to make changes, or seeking help, I need to keep my boundaries, even though I have forgiven them.

— Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 263

The Opposite of Resentment

Forgiveness 0

The emotional opposite of resentment is forgiveness.  However, forgiveness does not mean condoning or overlooking the offense.  It does not mean reconciling with someone who has hurt you.  Neither does it require that you forego legal procedures of justice.

Forgiveness means letting go of the compulsion to punish, in the realization that we cannot harm others, particularly those we love or have loved, without harming the self.

— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 74

Prideful Forgivers

Forgiveness 0

How do we counter the pride of virtuous magnanimity, the second form of pride associated with forgiving?  As forgivers, we should remind ourselves that, on our own, we have neither the power nor the right to forgive and that we are neither knowledgeable nor virtuous enough to forgive well.  When we forgive, we make God’s forgiveness our own.  And even as we do, it’s Christ who forgives through us, not we who forgive on our own.  Our forgiveness is proper to the extent that it reverberates with God’s.  When offenders thank us for forgiving, we should respond the same way we respond when recipients thank us for giving — we should deflect gratitude and direct it to God, the true source and the true agent of all forgiving.  When we forgive well, there’s in fact very little to be proud of.  God being the source of our forgiveness, the better we forgive, the less reason there is for pride.

Prideful forgivers are bad forgivers partly because pride subverts what forgiveness seeks to achieve in the first place.  As we saw in the two previous chapters, forgiveness is not a private, virtuous act.  It’s part of a larger strategy of overcoming evil with good and bringing about reconciliation.  It doesn’t just relieve us from bitterness and resentment.  It enacts love for the enemy.  Good forgivers can’t therefore just dispense forgiveness without any regard for how it is received by the offenders.  Forgiveness will help overcome evil with good if it nudges offenders to repent, reconcile, and be restored to the good.  Humble forgiveness might achieve that goal.  Prideful forgiveness will have the opposite effect.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 217

At My Most Monstrous

Forgiveness, God, Love 0

I know that when I am most monstrous, I am most in need of love.  When my temper flares out of bounds it is usually set off by something unimportant which is on top of a series of events over which I have no control, which have made me helpless, and thus caused me anguish and frustration.  I am not lovable when I am enraged, although it is when I most need love.

One of our children when he was two or three years old used to rush at me when he had been naughty, and beat against me, and what he wanted by this monstrous behavior was an affirmation of love.  And I would put my arms around him and hold him very tight until the dragon was gone and the loving small boy had returned.

So God does with me.

— Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 250-251

Forgiveness Like the Father

Compassion, Forgiveness, God, Love 0

It is through constant forgiveness that we become like the Father.  Forgiveness from the heart is very, very difficult.  It is next to impossible.  Jesus said to his disciples:  “When your brother wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I am sorry,’ you must forgive him.”

I have often said, “I forgive you,” but even as I said these words my heart remained angry or resentful.  I still wanted to hear the story that tells me that I was right after all; I still wanted to hear apologies and excuses; I still wanted the statisfaction of receiving some praise in return — if only the praise for being so forgiving!

But God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking.  It is this divine forgivenss that I have to practice in my daily life.  It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical.  It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliments.  Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive.

This “stepping over” is the authentic discipline of forgiveness.  Maybe it is more “climbing over” than “stepping over.”  Often I have to climb over the wall of arguments and angry feelings that I have erected between myself and all those whom I love but who so often do not return that love.  It is a wall of fear of being used or hurt again.  It is a wall of pride, and the desire to stay in control.  But every time that I can step or climb over that wall, I enter into the house where the Father dwells, and there touch my neighbor with genuine compassionate love.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 129-130