Learning From Unforgiveness

Without feeling the effects of unforgiveness, would we recognize our need to forgive? 

We can carry unforgiveness and its consequences with us for a long time. The seasoned unforgiveness I’d carried for decades included body tension, distracted mind, and short fuse.  

Such things were familiar — my accepted norm. I was cut from corduroy, not silk. 

But, after an extreme explosion of anger toward our then-teenage son, I began to consider the cost of being a wound-up, preoccupied, and angry woman. 

In the aftermath of that volcanic eruption, a blanket of exhaustion covered me. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I only knew that I could no longer afford the excuses I’d given myself before. It was time for some serious self-reflection. 

A friend invited me to attend a retreat at a monastery and I went. The monastery provided exactly what I needed for self-reflection: silence and solitude. 

In the months following the retreat, I returned to the monastery as often as possible by myself. Every time I went, something loosened. My father had died by suicide when I was thirteen, and for decades I’d carried that loss the only way I knew how — sealed off, unexamined. Now, in the quiet, the tension around it began to soften.

One day, I was completely surprised when it dawned on me that I needed to forgive my father. My tension, distracted mind and short fuse were not because I was cut from corduroy. They were symptoms of unforgiveness. I’d finally felt the effects enough to recognize the need.  I didn’t yet know what forgiving my father would look like, but I was willing to find out.

Why Bother?

Why bother learning from unforgiveness? Just like the night sky showcases the beauty of the stars, unforgiveness reveals our need to forgive.