What Happens When We Cannot Forgive?

Addressing the pebble in my shoe

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I’ve given an enormous amount of time, particularly in my role as an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament, to the need for forgiveness. As an ELCA pastor I proclaim the forgiveness of sins in the confession and forgiveness, the Great Thanksgiving, the Lord’s Prayer, and in just about every sermon that I have preached. Forgiveness is at the core of why we gather; it’s why we share the peace. 

Peace is the gift that can keep on giving hope to those who feel hopeless or unworthy. In fact, before we share the peace at the parish I serve, I’ll say, “When we share the peace of Christ what we are saying is this: I am sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. And, I love you. Those are powerful words as we offer this gift of reconciliation.”

For me, God is the One who is bestowing this gift upon us, between us, inside of us, and around our communities of faith. Like grace, it is freely given. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t deserve it. Forgiveness is often outside of our understanding.

Real apologies

Where I believe we run into trouble is when we demand it from people who may be incapable of giving it to us. The opposite is true, too. Others may demand it from us when we may not be able to see our own offense or the inferred offense that others have taken to heart.

Harriet Learner and Brené Brown discuss what I would call ‘The Anatomy of an Apology’ on a podcast. Additionally, this is the link to a downloadable PDF that hangs in my home office—for it is at home that I seem to need to make apologies more often. My guess is that I am not alone on that front. This PDF includes some of the hardest internal learning I have attempted to practice every single day. 

As an Adjunct Professor at Luther Seminary and a full time pastor, I believe it is my duty and delight to model healthy relationships, at home and when I am away from home. See the Great Shema in Deuteronomy 6.

All of that said (or read), the question I have around forgiveness is this: What if I cannot forgive someone? 

To be clear, I’m not talking about the community I serve or my spouse. I am talking about people who have betrayed me or treated me in a cruel or vicious way about who I am as a person. 

Argh! These people are often our family members

The pebble

Here’s where I have landed, I know that forgiveness is outside of my capacity with some people who have deeply wounded me. I bet some of you may resonate with that reality. 

Which leads me to the story of the pebble.

For years I held a family member in contempt because of the lack of respect they had shown me over my lifetime. I wanted them to ask for forgiveness. I even imagined not giving forgiveness to them in spite. That’s what some family systems do to us, they can make us haughty, foolish, binary, angry, annoyed, and all the rest—fill in the blank here.

The reality is, that’s like walking around with a pebble in your shoe. No one can see it. It hurts every step, every moment. The person we so desperately want to ask for forgiveness rarely even knows we need it or are incapable of extending it for whatever reason.

We can remove the pebble. Chances are that it’s doing us more harm than it is them. Now, before you decide that I may be giving difficult people a pass, go back to Learner’s PDF. Is it about me or is it about them? We cannot change other people or control them. We can forgive them by removing the pebble and moving on.

Didn’t Anne Lamott write that “Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die”? Yes, forgiveness is good for us. Forgiveness is like grace. We are not responsible for other people’s actions around forgiveness. We can extend grace, remove the pebble from our shoe, and trust that God will give the person opportunities for right relationship over and over and over again. 

Which leads me to the final question: Is blood thicker than water? I don’t know of any perfect family. Sometimes our siblings, parents, and extended family still see us as a clueless wonder even when we have done the hard internal work of healing from the hurts we experience in this world. Some relationships do have an expiration date. That doesn’t mean we cut them out of our lives or call them names. It means we set clear boundaries around behavior that has hurt us in the past and may hurt us in the future. 

Name it anyway

Forgiveness is sometimes outside of our capacity. But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story. We can still heal when we share our shame, our sadness, our hurt, and our desire to be in right relationship with someone, or even in a letter that we never send. Write it out. Pray it out. Trust that God will be God. Know that you are not alone. Know that you are capable, acceptable and loved for free. That’s grace and forgiveness. 

Perhaps the hardest thing we run into when we consider forgiveness is this: learning how to forgive ourselves. By the way: you’re already forgiven. You are forgiven. Hey. You are forgiven. Now go into the world lighter, freer, and filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“Salvation belongs to our God and to Christ the Lamb forever and ever!” And for this good word we can all say: Thanks be to God. Amen.

Consider this while reflecting or journaling: Is the story I am telling myself the real story?

Our memories change over time. Nostalgia actually means the pain of going home. We all have been hurt, intentionally, or more often not intentionally, by our family or friends. By using the BRAVING code for right relationship, can we move towards becoming more generous and more non-judgmental? 

Boundaries are the entry point for any healthy relationship. What boundaries were crossed by you or the other person? What can you learn about yourself that will help you grow into a calmer, non-anxious presence when you are in the company of someone who hurt you—yet they may not even know that they did so? What’s the pebble in your shoe? Is it your own shame or hurt? Or, is a perspective that could be changed? 

We often confabulate or have feelings that lead us to conspiracy. Let go. Remember you are forgiven. It is okay if you cannot forgive someone. Let God be the one to forgive.

  • Jules Erickson

    The Rev. Dr. Jules Erickson has served as an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA for 25 years. She is a Clergy Coach, an Adjunct Professor at Luther Seminary, leads a Rostered Clergy class on BFST, and loves to preach, teach, play and create pottery. Jules is also a Certified Facilitator for The Daring Way™ and Rising Strong™ Curricula from the research of Brené Brown. She lives in Hastings with her wife and their two golden doodles. If you want to have a guest speaker or need a coach, contact Jules at [email protected] Check out more about the parish she serves at www.allsaintscg.org Stay tuned for upcoming book releases in 2023 on the topics: Practical Grief; “Stuff” They Don’t Teach You in God School; and a children’s book titled The Maple Leaf.

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