A Change of Heart

Finding Forgiveness

“I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It's a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It's not something that happens overnight. It's an evolution of the heart.”

Sue Monk Kid

Forgiveness is like peeling an onion; there are layers and layers. You peel away the thick outer ones, and progressively the layers become thinner and smaller. You think you've finished, but there, deep in the middle, you find a tiny, little sliver, thin as a toothpick, but just as loaded with eye-watering judgment as those thick outer layers. Forgiveness is like forensic work. You think all the information is in, but over time, new clues arise that need to be processed, and referenced, and integrated. Sometimes, even when we have processed every last scrap, the feeling of bitterness remains. Forgiveness is long-term work.

I know folks who have an even harder time with forgiveness than I. A few, who hold onto the “crimes” perpetrated against them in childhood, or in their adult life, as if they are clutching rough-cut diamonds of inestimable value. Were they to lose one, they would feel impoverished forever. They have built their identity around wounds suffered long ago, and if they were to forgive the offending parties, who, then, would they be?

Forgiveness is not something someone else can do for us. No laying on of hands, no kneeling at the altar, no cosmic revelation, will bring about a change of heart in one who is not ready to have their heart changed. We must be willing to un-clutch the diamonds. We must make a conscious decision, maybe more than once, to forgive and move on. We must pull the layers away and let them go until there's nothing left but light.

                                                   In the Spirit,

                                                       Jane