Day 13 - Letting Go of Unforgiveness (Part 2)
Forgiveness is the final form of love. ~Reinhold Niebuhr
Unforgiveness is such a huge topic, I felt I needed to address (at least) one more issue… Forgiving ourselves. Tomorrow we’ll deal with something light, I promise!I’m really good at kicking myself. I mean I’m REALLY good at being mad at myself and then not being able to forgive myself. Here’s a true confession…as a perfectionist one of my defense mechanisms is to make all kinds of excuses for why I did something a certain way.Even when I have a sneaking suspicion I’m “wrong” about something, I keep defending it to the death so I don’t have to acknowledge that I might be wrong. Silly, I know. But, here’s where it gets really ugly. I hate myself for doing this. When I could just admit to my imperfection, laugh at myself and move on, I stew about the fact that I just defended something that was stupid (and maybe even wrong). Then, because I find it difficult to confess, I end up in a sticky cycle of defending, then hating myself. (There is probably a clinical word to describe this!) In the end, I find it hard to forgive myself for this stupid cycle. I’m sure no one else has this problem, right?My husband and I have an ongoing discussion about the optimal level and consistency of liquid in or on food. He likes his food covered with sauce, and not runny sauce, but sauce that sits more like gravy, but not too thick. He likes enchilada-style burritos and runny stew. I like sauce, for sure. I’m thinking here about a delicious chicken dish with a coconut milk/pumpkin/cinnamon sauce…yum! But not every meal needs that much sauce. I like my broccoli or Brussels sprouts steamed or sautéed, without sauce and I like my steak with a tiny bit of au jus, but I am not a fan of smothering a good steak with steak sauce or gravy. I also like thick stew. We are different, and I’m usually okay with that. But, one night not too long ago, I made what I would call “Lentil Stew” that was meant to be thick. When we sat down to dinner, Bob got up and added a bunch of water to his bowl to make it soupy. Well, I got into a huff and explained that it was supposed to be stew not soup. The conversation went downhill from there. In the end I was defensive and hated myself for getting into that weird cycle (again!). But, here’s the point. I had to struggle through to get to the point where I could be gentle with myself and forgive myself for being so stupid. (For the record, Bob always points me towards grace in these situations.)Why is it harder for us to forgive ourselves sometimes, when we would easily give someone else grace in the same situation? I’m not sure I can adequately answer that question, but here’s what I’m beginning to discover. When we don’t forgive ourselves, we become fragmented people, trying to discard those parts that we haven’t forgiven. We can’t love what we can’t forgive, so we end up hating parts of ourselves. This fragmentation is dangerous on so many levels! Fragmentation may lead us to believe that God only loves parts of us. If we are fragmented, we begin to only love fragments of our neighbor.In the end, forgiving ourselves goes a long way towards healing our fragmented souls. Reiterating yesterday’s post, I must first blame myself for falling into the defensive cycle, acknowledging the wrong that I have inflicted on myself. Then, I can move towards forgiving and loving the “wayward fragment” of myself so it doesn’t throw chains around the healthy part of me. Forgiveness offered then must be received in order for the fragments to be reconciled and become a whole person.Practicing forgiveness is a uniquely God-like activity. God is in the business of loving and forgiving all the fragments of our lives and weaving them together into beautiful works of art. When we forgive ourselves we can enter into the beauty God sees in us…we can begin to love ourselves. Loving ourselves then opens the possibility for us to love our neighbor more fully.May we gently and generously forgive ourselves, allowing God to lovingly make our brokenness beautiful. May we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Note: The featured picture on this post is jewelry made by Nozomi Project. Each piece is crafted from a piece of broken china that littered the landscape after the devastating tsunami in Ishinomaki, Japan. I can't think of a more appropriate image for loving and forgiving the (sometimes hard to forgive) fragments of our lives. May we embrace our beauty in the midst of brokenness.