I (Aimee) don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned my father before. When I was in high school, my father was arrested and went to prison for several years. I haven’t actually seen him since then. It’s been about 15 years.
I have many happy memories with my father. But around the time that I was in junior high school my father changed. He became verbally abusive. He isolated himself from us more and more. I avoided him more and more, because anytime I was around him he just yelled at me and put me down anyway. But I never hated him. I hated the person that he had become. That person was not the father that I had loved. So, when I came home from school one day to hear my grandmother say that he was gone, I didn’t cry. For several weeks, in fact, I didn’t cry. Then, one morning at school, I broke down in hysteric sobs and they didn’t stop for several hours.
Initially, I was so busy with the life of an upcoming graduate (trying to finish well, figuring out where to go to college, getting all the paperwork correct for financial aid, school activities, church activities, etc. etc.) that I didn’t take much time to think about it at first. My father was gone. There was good and bad to that. I mourned, but then I pushed it aside. Kind of like Scarlett O’Hara, I said to myself, “If I think about it now I’ll just go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
I’ve worked a lot on what to do with all of this since then. I still don’t have all of the answers. For the longest time, I struggled with forgiveness. Not my willingness to give it, but did I need to give it. You see, my father’s civil crimes were not against me. So, for many years, I didn’t think that it was my forgiveness that was needed. It was a long time before I could admit to myself how much his neglect and his insults and his choosing this other life over a life with me had really affected me. That's when, I realized that I needed to forgive him. And that was when I was able to start forgiving him.
I definitely don’t know everything about forgiveness. But I’ve picked up a few things from my own experiences, from talking with others, from books, and from classes:
1. Forgiveness is a process. Faster or slower depending on the circumstances.
2. Forgiveness does not have to be requested to be given.
3. Forgiveness can be more of a gift to you than to the person you are forgiving.
4. When someone has wronged you, they have the right to ask for forgiveness. You have the right to say that you will work on it.
5. (This goes along with #4) God expects you to forgive others. Always. Every time. As many times as it takes.
6. Forgiving does not mean (nor should it mean) forgetting. But not forgetting does not give you permission to throw someone’s mistakes in their face.
And perhaps most importantly…
7. No one deserves forgiveness. Not even you. But God forgave you anyway.
I’m still working on it. And I may be working on it for the rest of my life. I hope not. But I don’t know God’s plans. I need His wisdom and His mercy, but I’m so flawed I can only take it in doses. He’s working on me (thank God!) and I have to be open to Him. I can't do it without Him.
