When Forgiveness Heals the Forgiver
Forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:31)
If you are like most people, someone in your life hurt you deeply and you have struggled with feelings of anger, resentment, and perhaps rage.
Possibly you have buried or denied such fierce emotions and still hold a grudge that, when triggered, arouses fury.
Harboring intense emotions like these eventually becomes an aggravating burden that weighs you down and adds to your grief and sense of hurt. Then one day a good friend suggests a choice available to you, to forgive.
“No way! Not a chance!” you howl.
But what if . . . what if you actually forgave that person? Fully. Whole-heartedly. No strings. This blog post offers such a story.
It starts when a boy of twelve faces a disturbing change: his parents relocate from their cherished neighborhood in a large Midwestern city to the outskirts of exurbia where they build a new oversized house on the wooded shore of a small lake.
The boy comes to discover that the move is largely because of his mother’s oversized ego and her need to show off her husband’s rising career status and her own need to impress people with her artistic decorating and gardening prowess.
On a sad day the boy will never forget, he says “goodbye” to classmates and playmates, then starts sixth grade at a new “country” school eight distant miles away.
Was God anywhere in all this? The boy had no clue; his family never worshipped at church and nobody ever talked about God at home or in school. The reason I know these facts is because I was that boy.
Then “it” happened
At the two-acre lot where construction of the new house was underway, our mom ordered me and my brothers Dave and Tom to move a grove of birch trees 150 yards to the lakeshore. Why? So she could enjoy viewing them someday through the then-imaginary picture window.
We boys looked at Dad, who shrugged meekly, and our visit turned into a workday. We guessed he balked because of the noticeable signs of his failing health, just when his career and reputation had risen in the eyes of the community, his employer, and clients.
Amid the natural wild beauty of the lake, the sunny day turned hot and we boys sweated in our T-shirts as we uprooted 19 young trees, hauled them in a wheelbarrow 150 yards away, dug deep holes, and replanted them … all day until dark.
I recall Dave saying, “She’s so bossy. She must think we’re her slaves!”
Any project for Mom, we learned, entailed working long hours. And there were lots of projects. Like the time Dave and I were told to tile the entire ground floor of the house. This meant covering 1,800 square feet — a large rec room, a utility room, a furnace room, and a long hallway connecting them — with square one-foot vinyl tiles.
We stared at the boxes of floor tiles on the bare concrete floor and five-gallon bucket of black, sticky paste. Mom left us to fend for ourselves with no clue about how or where to start.
Dad couldn’t even supervise because he was hospitalized temporarily with complications from diabetes and neuropathy (and ultimately an amputated leg). In all, the tiling took ten days of hard work, after school each day and on weekends.
It bothered me that the mom we had known and loved at our first house had deserted us. Until we moved she had cheerfully done “mom things” like hosting birthday parties and summer picnics and inviting neighbors over as well as celebrating holidays and annual festivities like the Fourth of July.
She’d been a regular loving mom in my brothers’ lives and my own.
Life in that fancy house we came to call “Mom’s palace” now became twisted, her boys’ needs neglected to meet her demands. More of her endless projects kindled hatred within me, deep hatred.
Eventually, the family’s finances tanked and my father had to take months off from work on medical leave, never to return home. Weeks later, on November 14, 1965, Dad died. His death sparked the forced sale of “Mom’s palace” the following year.
A reckoning 12 years later
During my college years, and later when I landed work in California’s TV industry, I put as much distance as possible (thousands of miles, months of silence) between myself and the mother I could not — could never — forgive.
When 25, I married a sweet, kind-hearted young woman named Susan and, outwardly, our life prospered.
But my prolonged rage often simmered in my soul and, when triggered, boiled over. One day a good friend responded to my intense agitation when I complained about how futile and wretched human life was.
His name was Joe Steward, a Midwesterner like me with stars in his eyes for Hollywood fame; acting was his dream, screenwriting was mine. Too many rejections of my dramatic scripts over six years had soured my hopes for a movie career, and now I felt stymied.
“You’re mad at Hollywood like I am, John,” Joe said. “But it’s really because you’re not part of God’s plan.”
Shocked, I stammered, “God? Huh? What the . . . ?”
“God wants to help you and has a plan for your life. But maybe it’s not screenwriting.”
“A plan? Since when?” I asked.
“Since His son Jesus walked the earth.”
“Oh boy, are you serious?”
After more back-and-forth, Joe uttered, “Jesus loves you, John. Know Jesus, Know God.”
This out-of-nowhere news flabbergasted me. I doubted, I debated, I fretted. During my growing-up years, as mentioned, my parents hadn’t attended church, and God’s name, if spoken at home, ended in profanity.
Joe’s suggestion that my feelings of powerlessness were spiritual confounded me. Yet, emotionally, I sensed in my heart he was right. In a leap of faith, I dedicated my life to Jesus Christ.
Life flip-flopped from despair to euphoria
A welcoming church community in LA where believers loved Jesus became an oasis for my wife and me. As I learned to pray, to worship, to read Scripture and be baptized, a Light-hearted spirit lifted my woeful moods. Susan’s own transformation of faith occurred soon after.
A year went by during which the memories of Mom’s abuse still lingered, however. Every so often I took walks on a hillside footpath along the base of the towering H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D sign — until the day I was walking alone and heard a voice in my head say, Forgive your mother.
Startled, I stopped. Again, I heard the voice say, Forgive your mother.
“No way! Impossible! It’s not fair!”
I drove home and told Susan, “Twice the voice said, Forgive your mother.”
She replied, “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“No,” I growled. “I could never do that.”
For the next few days I brought up every possible objection with the Lord: Mom did not deserve forgiveness, she hadn’t apologized or admitted her faults, her behavior had made Dad miserable, my own hurt was too deep.
During a sermon, I heard a Bible verse that stirred me to the core: “Get rid of all bitterness and wrath and anger . . . forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:31, NIV).
I freaked out. Oh my, now what? So simple, so difficult. Yet, when I reflected on how God had freely offered forgiveness for my sins and misdeeds, something rigid inside me softened.
That day I knelt on the ground, and spoke aloud: “Mom, I … I … forgive … you.”
Sobs welled up within me and tears exploded from my eyes. Huge waves of sorrow and grief dislodged from my soul like tons of lead. Years of ugly, murderous grudges dissolved right there in the Lord’s presence.
Over time, memories of my younger, more lovable mom in the first house replaced the ugly memories spurred by my painful anger.
A bonus occurred that Christmas. With Susan and our 5-year old daughter, we flew home to visit Mom. Although I had insisted on minimal contact for years, it was my idea to return and reconcile with her. As a widow for 15 years who’d never remarried, it was clear she had reflected on her past behavior and gained emotional insights into the feelings of others.
We knocked on the same door I had slammed behind me the day I swore to never return. When the door opened, Mom’s face lit up in a smile as she greeted us. Seeing my beaming face, she blurted out, “Johnny, you’ve changed! You look happy!”
“Yes, Mom, I have changed. I love you.”
Abruptly, her hands covered her face and she gasped, “That’s the first nice thing I’ve heard you say in 20 years!” Teary-eyed, she reached for my hands. “You really love me?”
“Yes, Mom. I’ve forgiven you.”
“Forgiven me . . .?”
I hugged her tenderly, then put my arm around her as we walked to the living room where we sat together. I confided how God had helped me let go of the decades of pain and anger, and she curled up in my arms as she welcomed the rekindled love I felt for her.
I spoke in a quiet voice about the years we boys had spent doing her endless projects for the fancy house in the woods. She had suspected as much and said, “I’ve always wondered if that was the reason. Now I know. I’m so sorry. Can I ever make it up to you?”
I assured her that my hard feelings were gone. We hugged, and tears filled her eyes. Right then she phoned Dave, then Tom, and apologized to each one. That began a wave of apologies and emotional healing that rippled through the family for months and years afterward.
. . .
A version of this post was originally published by Ed Newman at https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com.
