How do I Forgive?

Dear Cinnamon

Apr 3

Dear Cinnamon,
I’m having trouble forgiving a few people in my life. I try and try to let the hurt go, but it keeps bubbling up and I find myself being really angry that these people acted the way they did. How do I finally find the strength to forgive them?

Dear Reader,

On the morning of my 2nd wedding anniversary, my little dog Chloe was tragically killed by a neighbor dog. The neighbor had a hole in their fence that they were taking their sweet time to get fixed and while the hole didn’t seem large enough for their dogs to fit through, that morning when I got home from my stepsons football practice and let the dogs outside to go potty…their dogs were in our yard. I didn’t even know they were there until I heard a strange yelp that I hadn’t heard before and went to the yard to see what was up.

That’s when I saw her laying in the grass.

She hadn’t been bit, but crushed by the larger dogs paws. I was obviously a wreck and called my husband in a panic to come home, and my stepson was so angry he punched a hole in the wall. It was expectedly a very dramatic and emotional day for all of us.

A few weeks later I wrote about the whole experience on my blog. I wrote about how the neighbors left flowers on our front porch and offered to pay for Chloe’s cremation although they never ended up doing so. I wrote about how they had removed the dogs from their house that day because we were living in base housing at the time and they weren’t actually allowed to have the types of dogs that they did. I wrote about how when all this happened they were already in the process of their next PCS (permanent change of duty station). They moved away the next week and we never heard from them again. I wrote about how special little Chloe was with all of her little quirks. I wrote about how glad we were able to have given her a good life and would miss her funny little personality. I wrote about how our other two dogs seemed to miss her as well.

A friend of mine from college messaged me after she read the blog and said, “how are you not so incredibly angry at your neighbors? If I were you I would be furious!”

Her question made me pause. I didn’t mention in the post about being angry or not angry, but when I thought about it, I didn’t feel a lot of anger towards them. That must have come through in what I wrote. What happened had happened and no amount of anger on my part was going to change that.

I wrote back to her and told her that I just didn’t see any point in being angry because it wouldn’t change anything at that point. She responded, “yeah I can see that I guess, gosh that is mature of you, but still…I would be fuming!”

Why wasn’t I fuming? Had I forgiven these people and not even realized it?

The definition of forgiveness is “a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness”

In my situation, once the flood of emotion and sadness over loosing my dog had waned I was able to look at the situation from a more rational perspective. Continuing to hold on to feelings of anger and resentment would, at the core, only continue to harm ME. No one else, just me. Holding on to these feelings simply perpetuates the harm that someone else has done to you by inflicting even more harm upon yourself.

That sounds pretty terrible, so #nothanks.

Did I want to hang around and be best friends with my neighbors after this incident? No, of course not. But I also don’t wish any ill will against them. This is where the crux of struggling to forgive lies. Many people hold on to hurt that has been done to them because they think if they do release those feelings of resentment or vengeance, that means they now have to either act like nothing happened or become best friends with the person who inflicted the harm. Neither of those things are true.

As a Christian, we also have the added benefit of being the recipient of undeserved forgiveness. What a gift! When you are the recipient of forgiveness and grace when you have caused harm it helps you to provide the same for others.

If you are struggling to release those feelings of anger, I would advise the following:

Address the situation with the person who caused the harm. Let them know that you forgive them but also that it might take you a while to return to a “pre-harm” relationship, if ever. Even though you forgive them does not mean you have to continue the relationship in the exact same way. Depending on the damage done, the relationship may never fully recover and that is ok.
Pray for God to help you release these feelings of anger so you can have personal peace.
Reflect on the redeeming grace God has provided through Jesus. God has given us the awesome gift of forgiveness by offering up his Son to death on a cross and yet we continue to turn our backs on Him, ignore Him and His word. And despite that, he continues to love us. If he has done that for us, we should absolutely be able to do the same for others.

Forgiveness may feel counterintuitive, but I promise it’s not. There is so much freedom to be found in forgiving. I’ll be praying for you!