In the last lesson, we started looking at forgiveness because it is the nicest thing we can do for ourselves. Unfortunately, it can also feel like the hardest thing we can do for ourselves. The biggest mistake we can make when it comes to forgiving is thinking it’s for the other person – nope. Others might benefit, but the main reason we forgive is it frees us; it’s a gift we give ourselves. Forgiving is ultimately about letting go of the hurt and replacing it with something good. This is why phrases like “I’ll never forgive you for this,” are foolish. How is someone not forgiving really hurting the other person? You’re the one carrying the burden of hurt and resentment. The other person might feel bad for a moment, but then they’re fine to carry on with their lives. Phrases like this are more of a curse you put on yourself.
Where forgiveness is something we do for ourselves, reconciliation is what we do for the relationship. Reconciling is two parties coming together with new boundaries in order to protect the relationship for any further hurt. This is why the phrase “Forgive and forget,” is so dangerous because we should learn from our experiences and use that to have a better future together. Instead, we want to “Forgive and protect” because we implement new boundaries to prevent the hurt from happening again, which is what reconciliation is about. I once had a situation with a leader in the youth group I ran who was incredibly passive aggressive. Back then I still hadn’t fully grasped what that meant. I just knew he was a good guy when you were on the same team. I had no idea that behind the good face was a whole other side that made him a serious turd when he didn’t like something you did. As discussed in the last lesson, passive aggressive people are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and his costume looked really good. He had everyone fooled for a few years, but eventually he ruined one of the best people I’ve known. This young woman had been in my friend group for four years, but then she changed when they started dating in order to please him, which left our group going “What happened to her?” After trying different approaches to fix the relationship between me and this guy, we reconciled by making a boundary to go our separate ways. The timing was perfect because he was moving to a new city for work and unfriending each other on social media meant we’d never have to cross paths again. Regardless of how it ended, I’m grateful for the friendship we had been able to share while it lasted. Besides, he had been a tremendous leader in the youth group (even though I later found out our connection started because he originally had a crush on my girlfriend, but who didn’t?) The biggest problem is I wasn’t as wise and good with conflict back then as I am now. If I had present-me back then guiding younger-me, I might have been able to save the relationship, but the important thing is I’ve forgiven the situation, we reconciled, and now it’s just a story.
Reconciliation was a lesson I eventually figured out, but forgiveness was the first main topic I learned about when I started my journey to become a therapist. Conveniently (is that the right word?) I had just gone through the worst betrayal I’ve ever experienced partly because I was so ill equipped to go through it. Fortunately, it inspired a year’s worth of research and lessons that helped form the main foundation of my therapy practice that I’m still using almost 20 years later. Here’s the quick-ish version. I was 21 and my new (and first) girlfriend and I had been leading the junior high group at my church for the summer. For the fall the church hired a youth pastor and I switched to being a helper in the high school group. I volunteered for four and half years when the youth pastor essentially “fired” me – an impressive feat. How do you get fired from volunteering? Back then I had no idea what passive aggressive was. I even used a few tools from that category myself like the silent treatment because I thought it was better to be cold than yell (now I know I was wrong, so my temptation is to just stuff it down because I don’t want to do either, which is still not healthy but less harmful… to others). Fortunately, I can see clearly now the rain is gone (sorry, old man music moment) and I avoid all the passive aggressive traits – yea. This youth pastor, however, was impressively passive aggressive, which is why he was a man in his forties working as a youth pastor (i.e. a very poor paying job) and saying to the kids things like “Do you know what plethora means?” The worst part is he knew they wouldn`t know. Can you say “I build my self esteem by making kids feel dumb?” As I claimed, he was impressively passive aggressive.
Early on, when I was trying to build a connection with him, I shared that I had struggles with my dad – a typical young man’s struggle – but four and a half years later when he told me I was “fired” he used this conversation against me (i.e. like a nasty woman). The worst part was my dad had passed away over a year before that and I had found my healing with that relationship. The youth pastor also said I needed a mentor… Um, isn’t that what a youth pastor is supposed to be? To have something I shared in confidence four years earlier was hard. Being told I needed a mentor was confusing. To be told to leave the group and not say anything when it was the church I grew up in was brutal. There were no thank yous or goodbyes – I was just gone. The sad thing was I soon found out I was the fifth leader to have had this happen, so then I also felt guilty for not having seen this before and offered those other people support. Like them, I disappeared like a good passive person does. Years later I bumped into the actual pastor of the church at theology school and he asked me why I disappeared. That was an interesting conversation – he had no idea.
The crazy thing is I before the firing I had been praying for God to show me what I should be doing. I had applied to be the part time youth pastor at another church, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the group I had been invested in for so long. I had prayed for a clear answer. I should have added “Clear but nice,” because… well, being fired was pretty clear but not nice feeling. Over the next year a lot of my youth talks working as a youth pastor were about forgiving and dealing with hurt – shocking. I was doing better, but then several months into this position the pastor I was working for told me that the youth pastor I had worked under told him not to hire me – something that pastor should never have shared. Guess what anger style this pastor was? He was also passive aggressive – ministry attracts a type. This guy burned me four years later – passive aggressive people are the best. The important truth I’ve realized since is jerks will be jerks. Why would I expect to be treated differently by a jerk? This is another great way to help forgive someone. If the person is a jerk, don’t take their jerk-ness personally. It’s not you; it’s them – they`re a jerk. If the person is a good person who had a bad moment; don’t take it personally. It’s not you; they had a bad moment, and if you’re a good person as well, you should be able to work it out.
Finding out this youth pastor went out of his way to try to prevent me from having a future in ministry reopened a hurt that had been slowly healing. How could he be that mean? Sure, don’t let me be in your group, but why try to prevent me from other opportunities? That’s next level mean.
Now, you might be thinking maybe this youth pastor wasn’t mean; he simply didn’t think I had the right skills to be a youth pastor and he was trying to help the other church make an informed decision. That’s a very good point. After all, back then I still had a lot to learn about communication and how to handle conflict, so I had some weak areas. But here’s the kicker (yes, there’s more to this story of betrayal) later that year someone showed me my old church’s annual report and even though I hadn’t been in the youth group since the spring before, the majority of the report from the youth pastor was how he had let me run events and lead talks because he was such a great mentor. That’s right; the thing he said I needed – a mentor – he claimed to have been because it made him look good in the annual report, especially since it was my home church and all of the older people there respected my family. It was a genius move… for a manipulator.
On the plus side, jerks will be jerks, and I wasn’t the last person this youth pastor pushed out of the group. He soon kicked out a few more people who joined my group and became invaluable leaders – jerks miss out, and sometimes lead good people to each other.
Here’s the most important part of this story. Almost two years after being fired, I was at a wedding for someone and this youth pastor was doing the ceremony – that’s not the good part… obviously. Because I had done my healing, I was fine seeing him up front. Afterwards, I went up to say hi. I made sure my super hot girlfriend was beside me and I greeted him with a big smile and as friendly a voice as possible. He was 6’4 and 350 pounds and in all my time working with him, I had never seen him shrink so much. It was amazing. It was like he was preparing for me to attack him in some way, but it didn’t come. Instead, I was extra friendly and after a minute or two I moved on leaving him in shock.
Jesus taught to “love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Mat 5:44), which is excellent teaching because this helps us forgive the hurt they cause, but I find the Apostle Paul’s quoting of Proverbs easier to start with: “If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat./ If they are thirsty, give them water to drink./ You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads,/ and the Lord will reward you.” (Rom 12:20) Why should we work at forgiving someone who has betrayed us? Because it’s like heaping hot coals on their head. Because I had worked through the forgiveness process, I was in the right spot to face the one who had hurt me and walked away with my head held high – it was incredible. Forgiving is truly a gift we give ourselves.
So what steps did I follow?
- Vent: Through physical venting (e.g. hitting a punching bag, screaming alone in the car, or anything that bursts out anger) we release the emotion inside of us. Then, through processing venting (e.g. talking to a trusted person or journaling) we flush out our thoughts on the situation.
- Define the hurt in one sentence: We have properly vented and processed a situation when we can summarize it in one sentence (e.g. I was betrayed by someone I thought I could trust).
- What can I learn from this experience?: There are many lessons to be learned in difficult times (e.g. be careful who you trust, jerks will be jerks, etc).
- What can I be thankful for in this situation?: (e.g. New and better opportunities, being able to see who my true friends were, etc).
- Out loud or written down claim: “In this moment, I forgive (the hurt defined in Step 2).” This is a conclusion for the moment.
- Distract yourself: Our brains need a break from thinking about something in order to heal or learn.
- Repeat: This step reminds us that we never forgive a bigger hurt in one shot. The bigger the hurt, the more we need to do these steps. Fortunately, the more we do these steps the less often we’ll need them. For instance, you might start doing them three times a day, but soon it’ll become three times a week and then three times a month to eventually disappearing because you’ll associate the situation with positive things.
These are the same steps that help us heal when we lose a loved one. The important thing to note is that sometimes all we can do is Vent, Distract, and Repeat. Sometimes we need this new reality a chance to set in before we start including the other steps.
This week may you consider how you can use these tools to heal.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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