Unforgiveness

Recently, an insightful woman who has known me for less than six months shared an insight with me. She said that she senses that forgiveness resides naturally within me. She’s right. It does. But it hasn’t always been there. First I had to let go of my unforgiveness in order for forgiveness to reign.

Becoming aware of our unforgiveness is the first step toward letting it go. But how do we know that we are carrying a sense of unforgiveness inside us? There are various ways unforgiveness makes itself known to us. For me, it was becoming a mom. 

 Being a mom made me cognizant of my anger. Like an artesian well, I had a constant supply of it. Knowing that I had a short fuse kept conscious of keeping myself in check. It was a bit of a workout for me, but I knew I did not want to over-react to my kids just being kids. For the most part and for most of the time, my anger stayed contained and under control.

But, when our oldest son, as a teenager, deviated from playing sports, going to school and being compliant and respectful with what my husband and I had established on the home front, my anger became harder to contain. Our non-compliant son, who now found comfort and solace with smoking pot, skipping school and staying away from home for days at a time, stirred up some old emotions inside of me. Emotions that were attached to my dad’s suicide.

The old trauma and all its glorious feeling was recharged with the predicament I was in with my son.

There was a sense of having no control. I had no power to control my son from destroying his life which only reminded me of how I felt after my dad’s suicide; a sense of powerlessness. 

Along with the sense of powerlessness came an overwhelming fear; the same fear that I felt when my father ended his life.

The combination of my feelings ignited my short fuse and I exploded one night, spewing hurtful words all over our oldest son. I regretted my words, but this was a pivotal point for me because I realized that my anger was attached to my old fear and feelings of powerlessness. Recognizing these emotions and what they were doing to me propelled me toward my journey to forgiveness. 

It was not an easy expedition for me to explore my emotions. It was quite scary. But I knew that if I wanted to transform myself, and I did, then I would need to do the transforming work: work which led to forgiving those who’d hurt me

Why Bother?

 Why bother letting go of our unforgiveness? When anger, resentment, or holding onto grudges is revealed, it might be that unforgiveness is there too. Letting go of that makes way for forgiveness to reign inside of us. 

P.S.  I wrote the story of my journey to forgiveness for those who, like me, know they need to change, but are not quite sure where to start. You can find A Heart’s Journey To Forgiveness at Redemption Press and Amazon.