The Three Hardest Words

I’m willing to bet that when I say today’s topic is “the three hardest words to say or hear,” the words that come to mind are either “I love you” or “you were right/I was wrong.” Close, but no cigar this time (which is fine by me, since I don’t endorse smoking habits in general). The words that sparked today’s post are: 

I forgive you.

If you’ve ever felt compelled (or more accurately, convicted) to say these words, then you probably know what I’m getting at. It’s hard to do it, and even harder to mean it. But why? 

You know you should, and you know it’s good for all involved, but you suffer little justified pangs along the lines of “why should I? They haven’t apologized” or “I don’t want to open myself up to that kind of hurt/attack/situation again.” At least, I know I do. 

What’s worse, you finally get around to forgiving that person for stealing the last muffin, and the very next time any sort of grievance crops up between the two of you, the anger flares up all over again. Then you start to wonder if you ever really forgave them at all. After all, if you actually forgave them, then you wouldn’t still be angry about it, right? 

Wrong. 

See, that’s what I didn’t get for the longest time. Forgiveness isn’t something you do once and then you’re done, like putting up a shelf, or plugging in the TV. It’s an ongoing task, a bit like laundry. I just did a load last week, but things are dirty again and I need to throw another load in if I want any clean underwear tomorrow. 

I wonder, sometimes, why this is such a hard thing to comprehend. For years, decades even, I thought that if I really, truly, fully forgave someone, then I would stop being angry with them for whatever it was that I was holding against them. I thought that forgiveness was supposed to be a sort of “reset” button on relationships, so that when it was done, things could go back to the way they were, because the thing that had made me upset was in the past and it couldn’t hurt me anymore. I’m under the impression that there are a lot of people in the world that think about forgiveness this way, and that’s why there are so many people that are unwilling/unable to forgive others. 

We think to ourselves that we don’t want to let go of the anger. We don’t want to forget the hurt. We don’t want to let them back in, because they don’t deserve our trust. That there were lessons we learned from that Bad Thing and that if we forget the Muffin Incidents in our lives, then we’ll forget the things we learned about ourselves from that. Or forget how to take care of ourselves in an emotionally healthy way. 

But I want to share a secret with you. 

When you forgive someone, really and truly… when you walk up to them and say right to their face those three hard words. When you process the hurt and the anger and the betrayal and the damage, what you’re doing is not giving them trust they no longer deserve. You’re not even giving them that “second chance” that people talk about. What you’re doing is you are telling them that the hurt and the betrayal and the damage is all in the past. 

You won’t forget it, and you may not even stop being angry about it, but you’re letting go of the burden of vengeance. Retaliation is not your responsibility anymore. The obligation to treat them a certain way or teach them a specific lesson or make them understand a certain thing - that’s not your problem anymore. You might still be hurting, and that’s something they’ll have to deal with if they want to pursue any kind of relationship with you, romantic or platonic, familial or friendly or professional. But it’s their problem now. Not yours. You have done the work you need to do to keep yourself emotionally and mentally healthy. The ball is in their court. 

And that’s what I deny myself every time I refuse to forgive someone. I am keeping for myself a to-do list of relationship “repairs” or “balances” that I feel responsible for. Things that aren’t what I can control or even influence very much, because these things are all things that must be done or understood or learned by the other person. And that is a burden I don’t want to carry with me anymore. 

So next time you find yourself dwelling on that time that so-and-so stole your thunder at a meeting or said something nasty to you or treated your partner badly, I want you to remember that you’re adding an item to your to-do list that you can’t do. Let it go, take a deep breath, and forgive. Then treat yourself to some tea or a nice coffee. You earned it.