Forgive us. Forgive them?

When I was growing up my dad had an old Chevrolet pickup with wooden planks in the bed. I used to love to play on that pickup. Maybe I liked it because it was yellow. Maybe I liked it because it had a bed on it in which I could hide from my mother. Whatever the reason, I spent many an hour playing on that truck. Then one day, “it” happened.

The infamous “it” was a piece of one of the wooden planks which became lodged in my right big toe. I am not talking a splinter here. Think more of a dagger, no, a sword piercing my flesh, and it went to the bone and then broke off deep inside. At least that is how I remember it. Of course I howled in pain and ran inside for consolation, but such was not to be had for my mother did not want to console me. She didn’t even want to make my toe stop hurting. She wanted to stick a piece of metal in me. She called it a needle but I would call it more like a carving knife. She had the audacity to suggest that she stick that jagged blade into my now tender toe. What was she trying to do? Cut my toe off?

Convinced that my mother had lost her mind, I retreated to my room where I waited for my father to come home. I assumed that my father would have a much better plan than my mother, and that he would deal with her apparent mental lapse. But when my father came home, I discovered that whatever had infected my mother—was it an alien invasion or just the early onset of dementia?—had also gotten to my father. He didn’t just want to stick that needle in me, but he was convinced that he should first heat the needle with fire so that it was searing hot, and that my mother should sit on me while he conducted his vicious amputation without anesthesia. I protested loudly, but either the neighbors didn’t hear or they were in on the plot. The surgery proceeded against my wishes and must have gone on for hours. I am sure I blacked out a few times.

I awoke to find that my mother was no longer sitting on me. I was almost afraid to look at my foot. Who knew what horrors awaited my downward gaze. To my amazement, I discovered that my toe was still intact, and that it no longer hurt. Who knew? Maybe my parents weren’t so crazy after all. Then again, I wasn’t going to be too hasty with my judgment.

As we have been chatting about forgiveness, this story has been coming to my mind. For me, it represents how I react, to this day, to pain. “It” happens almost every day. Almost every single day I find that something gets lodged in me. However, my present splinters are anything but wood. They are words, attitudes, actions, insults, and more. They are the weapons, intentionally and unintentionally, used by others to get their way. They go deep and they hurt badly. At the end of the day, I can have quite a collection. I run to my heavenly Father looking for consolation. “Look what they did to me. See what they said to me. Make it stop.” Often it seems that my Father is not interested in making the pain go away. He has this crazy idea of making the pain worse. He wants to use the sharp sword of forgiveness. I am not convinced and often run to my room to sit with my pain. Finally, I come out and allow him to conduct his surgery, sometimes with him sitting on me. I know, I just know that I am going to come out of it worse than I went in. Sometimes I even think I am going to black out. Most of the time, I fight. In the end, when I look down, I find that I am still intact. Best of all, the hurt is gone. I wonder if maybe, just maybe I have been wrong about this forgiveness thing. Then again, maybe I am just being too hasty in my judgment.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Talk about forgiveness: Talk freely and openly with your children about forgiveness. One possible way you might do this is before they go to sleep to ask them the following questions: (1) How does your heart feel tonight? (2) Did anyone do anything that hurt your heart today? (3) Did you do anything to hurt someone’s heart today? (4) What might it look like to forgive or ask for forgiveness? You might conclude your discussion by praying the Lord’s Prayer which speaks to forgiveness (Matthew 6.9-13).

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Meditate on God’s forgiveness revolution: This week consider joining God on the journey of forgiveness. I would encourage you to begin this journey at the beginning, by acknowledging that you have been hurt. Find a friend or someone that is safe and tell them how you have been hurt. Dig up what has long been buried. Pray with your friend for the grace take next steps with what you have brought out. Ask for the grace to choose forgiveness over fairness. Ask for the grace to travel this path, one day, one moment at a time.