Forgiveness, anger, and musicals. Why not?

Some days forgiveness does not come as easily as it should. I went to bed last night trying to ignore the fact that I could feel my heart taking a turn I didn’t want it to take. I woke up this morning angry. The passage today in the devotional I have been reading was all about learning to extend forgiveness. The sermon at church on Sunday was all about seeking wisdom in ourselves and our friends. These blaring lessons weren’t lost on me as I sat on the deck with my coffee and thought about why my heart is inclined toward anger today. I read a passage from a book the other day that suggested if we can make our anger malleable so as to learn from it and transform it, then anger can be constructive.

I am angry at my friend. I’m angry at her choices. I’m angry that every mistake we both made to end our friendship seems to have been in vain- because she appears not to be learning or changing or growing. She is continuing the same habits that have contributed to a growing emptiness in her life. I’ve invited the same exact dysfunction and empty substitutes in lieu of living my life well in to my own experience before. I feel replaced. She moved on quite quickly with new ‘kindred spirits’-who, a week ago, she didn’t have a single good thing to say about. It makes me feel like I was a place holder for something else in her life, and now she has filled that spot with another place holder. And here I say it all only appears this way because we can never truly know how someone is changing or growing from the outside. All we have are our own perceptions, so we should be gentle about those. Still, it would be nice to know that maybe we both grew a little because of one another. By all means, I wish I did not care. But I do care, because despite the ways in which we hurt one another, part of me will always care about her happiness and well being.

My focus is not, however, on how I am angry with her or with anyone else who has contributed to making a bad situation worse. My focus is on working through the anger I feel to get back to a point of peace. Communication is not an option, or even much of a desire anymore. So how do I go from anger to peace?

I have to walk daily in these things:

1. Our friendship ended badly, but I am only in charge of how I feel and act. I can continue to make the decision to be honest and to be kind. If those actions are not returned, I can be thankful that she isn’t a part of my life right now.

2. I can have a compassionate heart. Everyone makes mistakes. I did. We all have our own journeys to walk, and everybody’s journey has some hard, ugly parts we aren’t proud of. Everybody’s journey also looks very different from the person standing next to them. I can choose to hold the ugly parts against our friendship (and against myself) or I can choose to walk a path that includes compassion and unconditional love- for everyone involved.

3. What other people say about me isn’t my business. Opinions will always be formed, and half the time (at least) they will be wrong. It is my job to be kind, to not concern myself with negative thoughts-no matter who they are from. If you’ve not actively invited someone in to your life, or even gone so far as to actively remove them from your life, why on earth should you care what they think of you? People can write anything they want (poems, tweets, blog posts, and notes scrawled on napkins included). Make like a duck and let it roll right off. Life will be much easier. If someone thinks of you enough to write or otherwise express opinion about you, that is their experience to deal with. And yes- this advice goes for myself. I can write it down, and I can take responsibility for it being my experience and my experience alone to work through and reconcile.

4. Forgive yourself, but learn from your mistakes. If I cannot forgive myself, how can I possibly forgive anyone else? Learn and do not repeat, but also be gentle with yourself. I have learned to be more careful with my heart and who I hand it to. I have learned that words, even backed by good intentions, can cut deep. I have learned that living my life genuinely- the good and the bad- is about a million times better and more fulfilling than living in any sort of disingenuous belief or false experience. My life is full of a lot of beauty, creativity, and happiness. I’m more than glad to embrace those real, genuine moments with people I truly know and love.

5. You can be angry with someone and still love them. This is a point I drive home a lot, because I believe it wholeheartedly. Often times we are angry with others because we love them. Do not let anger become something passive or destructive. I am angry with her today, but that does not mean the affection and care I had for her has diminished. It simply means I did care. A lot. Anger becomes destructive when you fall prey to mistaking it for bitterness or hatred. I do not feel those things now and I will not feel those things in the future.

6. I am not responsible for other people. I cannot change the fact that our relationship grew to be unhealthy. I cannot change the fact that she has essentially replaced me with new people to fill those hours we used to spend laughing, talking, bonding. It feels fast. It feels like an assault, but at the end of the day, it is not my problem. Only time will tell which relationships in our life last, and if ours is meant to endure, it will. Regardless of other people or habits. It’s called having faith, and I need to learn how to have a little more.

As I sat this morning and thought, I knew my heart would be lighter again soon. Any type of loss, whether a friend or family member, a death or a friendship ending, will have stages to it. My heart won’t be light today, no, but it will be again. The recording of one of my favorite Broadway musicals was released today. As I listened to the songs, I thought of how different life looked last February when I was in New York to see the show itself. My friend had yet to go through the experience that would bond us so close, and our friendship was full of silliness, support, and hope. These words, from one of my favorite songs in the show, stuck with me this morning:

There are moments the words don’t reach, there’s a grace too powerful to name. We push away what we can’t understand, we push away the unimaginable. Forgiveness. Can you imagine it?

Fitting, really. No amount of words will reach the places we managed to destroy, but maybe one day there will truly be full forgiveness. For now, I will rely on time and the wisdom I seek. And that will be enough.