Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. Like many people, I sometimes find this principle difficult to fully understand. It’s easy to confuse forgiveness with allowing that person to continue to hurt you. Because I don’t fully understand it, I don’t always apply forgiveness properly in my life. Sometimes, I’m not 100% sure if I have forgiven someone. There are times when I’ve thought that I’ve forgiven that person and moved on only to have the anger later return.
My Experience
Several years ago, I met a lady. We quickly became good friends. For about a year, things were great. We got along wonderfully. She was someone that I felt like I could count on. I considered her one of my closest friends.
Almost exactly fifteen months after we met, it was like a switch flipped. She started to find fault with anything and everything that I did. I began to feel like I had to be extra careful what I said and did. It got to the point where I felt like had to carefully think through everything that I said, making sure that there was nothing that could be misunderstood or viewed in any way as offensive by her. Honestly, I found myself avoiding saying almost anything unless it was necessary when I was around her because of fear of how she would react. If I knew that I was going to see her, I’d spend several minutes just praying to know what to do and how to handle the situation.
It wasn’t a good situation, but at the time, I didn’t realize just how bad it was. I found myself justifying her actions and blaming myself. She was under a lot of stress. I probably wasn’t the easiest person to deal with. I was probably causing the issues. Maybe, if I was extra nice to her, things would improve. Let’s just say that the being extra nice thing really didn’t work.
Coming to An Understanding of What Was Happening
Unfortunately, things continued to get worse. She would say things to me that made it clear that she thought that she was better than me and that I should be grateful to be her friend. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was tearing down my self-esteem each and every time that I interacted with her. Unfortunately, I allowed this to happen for about two years.
As time passed, I knew that I needed to forgive her, but unfortunately, I had a misconstrued understanding of forgiveness. I kept telling myself that I had to forgive her. Unfortunately, what I was doing wasn’t forgiving her as much as it was putting myself in a position to be mistreated by her over and over again. I’d “forgive” her. Then the next time that I saw her, she’d mistreat me again. Then I’d have to “forgive” her again. The cycle would continue.
Over time, I realized that how she treated me was not unique. It was how she treated those closest to her, including other close friends and her family members. I knew I needed to start distancing myself from her. Unfortunately, because we were in the same ward, this wasn’t always easy. Yet, I would avoid her at church when I could. Most of the time, she wasn’t going out of her way to spend time with me either, but I still felt like a jerk for avoiding her and not doing things with her. After all, we’d been great friends for a year. There must be a reason that we’d been friends during that time. I didn’t want to just throw away that part of our friendship.
What I Felt I Had to Do
Eventually, the time came when we ended up in different wards. At that time, I realized that for my own mental well-being, it was time to completely cut off contact with her. That was hard. I felt like a jerk. Her birthday came soon after that, and I didn’t acknowledge it in any way. Honestly, that was probably one of the hardest things and the time when I felt the most guilty. After all, we’d had a great friendship for about a year. I kept thinking that maybe I was being overly dramatic about the bad times.
Yet, it was only as I had that distance from her that I realized what she had done to me. It was only over time that I realized that I had misunderstood/misinterpreted the principle of forgiveness. I wasn’t forgiving her. I was just putting myself in a bad situation. Even now, I’m not 100% sure that I have forgiven her. It’s not something that I think about every day, but when I think about it, the hurt is still there. I’m also not sure how I would handle things if I were to see her again.
Does Forgiveness Mean Trusting That Person?
This is one area where I went wrong. It’s where a lot of people go wrong. In many cases, part of the forgiveness process will involve at least working toward trusting that person again. Sometimes, that will come instantaneously. Other times, it might not come right away, but trust might be reestablished over a few months or years. In some cases, it might be a lifelong process of reestablishing trust.
In some cases, forgiveness will not involve trusting that person. If the person is causing harm (physical, mental, or otherwise), which is not going to end, that trust is gone, and you don’t have to feel guilty about establishing boundaries in that relationship or even ending that relationship if that’s what’s best for the situation. Let me repeat that, probably more for myself than for anyone else. You don’t have to feel guilty about ending that relationship if that’s what’s best for the situation.
Does It Mean That I’m Okay With Their Actions?
This is another area that can be confusing. Forgiving the other person does not mean that what they did is fine. It doesn’t mean that you’re okay with their action. It doesn’t mean that you’ll continue to put up with the way that person has treated you. I definitely went wrong in this area too. I convinced myself that to forgive this person, I had to basically pretend like what she did had never happened, and just continue as though everything between us was fine. Looking back, I realize that what I should have done is stand up for myself better, let her know that it was not okay for her to treat me that way, and move on if her actions didn’t change. I shouldn’t have felt guilty for wanting to be treated with respect by someone whom I’d considered my friend.
What Does Forgiveness Mean?
That’s really the million-dollar question, and I’m not the best person to answer it. Ultimately, forgiveness is more about you than it is about the person that you’re forgiving. That’s hard for me to comprehend sometimes. Forgiveness is about letting go of the anger and not allowing it to stew. To me, it’s about not allowing that person’s actions to continue to harm you. It’s about leaving judgment up to God. It’s really not about that person almost at all. That’s the good news.
The bad news? At least for me, it’s easy to forgive those who are really repentant, especially those who unintentionally hurt me. It’s a lot harder to forgive and let go of that pain when someone has intentionally caused damage, especially someone whom I once trusted and who is not remorseful at all. It’s a process for me to let go and move on. When I’ve really been hurt, revenge, anger, or wanting that person to feel my hurt are a lot more natural to me than completely turning it over to God to decide how to deal with that person. Yet, that’s what we all need to do at times.
If like me, you sometimes struggle to understand how to really forgive, I encourage you to check out these General Conference talks about forgiveness. While many of them are about seeking forgiveness yourself, others are about forgiving others.
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