Forgiving Yourself

Anyone who has followed me for long knows I have gone through a lot of junk and have been hurt by a lot of people. Though I will never understand the motives behind all that was done to me, I have forgiven those responsible, even if I choose to distance myself from them for the sake of my own preservation. But forgiving the people responsible for my junk and hurt was relatively easy – especially compared with the challenge of forgiving myself.

Like others who buy into the whole notion of worthlessness, as a young person I made choices I regret. And though I genuinely believe I came to saving faith in Christ as a teen, I did not live out my faith as I should have until my late 20s. I squandered years when I had the most time and energy to devote to Christ, and I have dropkicked myself all the way to midlife.

I’ll see a young woman backslide. Cringe. “Oh, dear Lord, was that me?” I ask. I see people look down their noses at people who commit certain sins and think, “Oh, Lord, what would they think of me?” A particular time on the clock reminds me of a pivotal juncture in my young life. “Oh, Lord, please forgive me,” I sigh.

Thing is, He has. And His words speak a rebuke to my feeble heart: Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Colossians 3:13). But, Lord, You don’t understand. I am guiltier than others. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (James 2:10). But, Lord, how can I ever be acceptable in Your sight? As fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain (2 Corinthians 6:1).

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! Why is it so hard for me to accept the grace that God so freely gives? Do I keep God in a box because I find myself too unworthy? Do I continually scrape the scabs of my heart because I don’t think I deserve to find healing?

But forgiveness is not optional. It’s part of the package. God extends grace and demands I accept it. He offers forgiveness and expects us to extend it. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14). Though Jesus is speaking about outward forgiveness, the same principal – accepting and applying grace – applies to inward forgiveness. We must forgive, even if it’s ourselves. Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do (Colossians 3:12-13).

God is so much kinder to us than we are to ourselves. We want to keep beating ourselves over the heads, and He is over it. It’s forgotten. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). Oh, to be like the Lord and see my sin no more! Truly God is love.

Which means, of course, that hate – the root of unforgiveness – is of the enemy. And because we are still entrapped in our flesh, which is enemy territory, forgiveness is a process. So when anger wells up afresh toward those who have hurt me, I often find myself praying for those still alive, “Please, dear Lord, save their souls. Take their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh.” It is impossible to hate someone for whom you pray. 

So I must choose to love myself, one whose worth is significant in the eyes of my Creator. So significant, in fact, that He took my sin to the grave. And when the enemy of my soul accuses me, bringing on a wave of guilt, I can say, “Thank You, God, that you have forgiven me. Thank You that You love me and You see my sin no more.” I can choose to stand firm in His great grace, which is forever greater than my sin.

Two Losses Do Not a Victory Make

I have often said that some of the hardest people to reach for Christ are those who realize their dead loved ones’ fate is eternally sealed. It’s much easier for them to push that reality aside like some begging dog that, if ignored long enough, will eventually sulk away than to face it head-on, especially if they have no reason to believe those they loved and lost did not know Christ as Savior.

For some, shunning salvation may be an act of nobility. After all, if you know your loved one is spending eternity in hell, why shouldn’t you want to be there with him to offer comfort? 

More often that not, I believe it’s a matter of ignorance. Years ago, someone who was filing excuses about why he shouldn’t commit his life to Christ said, “Hell can’t be all bad.” Oh yes, it can. That concept was obviously shared by someone who pursued me as a young woman when he said, “I’d spend eternity in hell if it meant I could be with you.” Well, if you’re reading this, please understand you would not be doing yourself or me any favors. First, I won’t be there. Second, you clearly are clueless about what hell is. It’s not a place where you enjoy comfort or companionship. It’s a place of eternal torment. 

In Luke 16:16-31, Jesus – who taught repeatedly on hell – gives us a glimpse into hell in the story of a poor man named Lazarus who lived at the gate of a rich man. Lazarus was “covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Luke 16:20-21). Eventually Lazarus, who trusted in Jesus, died and entered heaven, where he found comfort at Abraham’s side. The rich man, however, would face an eternity in hell upon his death. 

The rich man called to Abraham, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire” (Luke 16:24). Abraham told the rich man that he had enjoyed good things in his time on earth, and now Lazarus would find comfort while he endured torment (Luke 16:25).

But couldn’t the rich man’s loved ones pray or buy or baptize his way into heaven? Well, Abraham spoke about that as well in verse 26: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” The rich man had chosen to live apart from God, and that decision would follow him throughout all eternity.

Surely the rich man would want his loved ones to come join him there, right? Then, though separated eternally from God, he would still know the comfort of his loved ones. Nope. He “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment” (Luke 16:27).

Just so you know, this particular message is a difficult one for me to address, because I have two loved ones – my sister and my mother (see my Nov. 8 post) – whom I do not expect to see in heaven, barring any last-minute prayer to receive Christ as Savior. When I read in Philippians 2:10-11 “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” it grieves me that their worship of my Savior will be compulsory and not from a heart overflowing with love for Him.

The rich man did not wish his fate upon anyone. My mother and sister would not wish their fate upon me. And if you have loved ones who may share the rich man’s destiny, be assured they don’t wish their fate upon you either. They would hope that you would heed this message, that you would respond today. They would echo the plea of 2 Corinthians 6:2: “For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.”

Salvation is found in Jesus alone; He is a gift available for the taking if we are willing to accept Him. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). It’s a matter of receiving, believing and becoming: “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). 

Two losses do not a victory make. But victory is yours for the taking in Christ Jesus, and that decision is the best way to honor your lost loved ones.

The Help That Hurts

I often look at my adult children as aliens. They are God-fearing, pleasant, respectful, mostly responsible young adults whose existence makes the world a better place. What a departure they are from young adults in the world I had known, one where children were brought down and not brought up. 

Looking upon the grace of God reflected in my adult children, it is with sadness that I look back upon the adolescence and adulthood of my late sister. To say my sister was a troubled young person is akin to saying the Mideast is a troubled region of the world. Troubled doesn’t even begin to describe either scenario. It was no great surprise when my sister dropped out of high school and left home by age 15.

From there the bad choices just escalated: drugs, men, illicit income opportunities. And though my mother’s husband would forbid my mother from helping my sister, my mother would gather up dishes, food, bedding, clothing – whatever she could find – and smuggle the goods to my sister over on the not-so-nice side of town. I sometimes was compelled to ride along.

My sister would come to the door drunk or stoned or less than appropriately dressed or, perhaps, some combination of the three. The bags and boxes always made their way into her apartment, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before my mother would get a call from my sister saying that she still needed the very things my mother had just given her. Young as I was, I could guess what my sister was doing with all the donations. She would find a way to feed her habit above all else.

My mother – guilt-ridden over bad choices she herself had made as a mother – was convinced she was helping my sister. Others, including me, would try to point out to her that she was encouraging my sister to continue in her bad behavior. What motivation did my sister have to repent? My mother’s behavior, I would learn years later, is calling enabling, one of those rare psychobabble terms with genuine merit.

For those who haven’t read my earliest posts, my sister’s self-destructive tendencies ended in her suicide, which was followed six months to the day later by my mother’s suicide. It was failure that killed my sister and guilt that killed my mother. In the end, no one benefitted from my mother’s intervention in my sister’s life.

I am convinced that my mother believed she was doing the loving thing. A mother would never let her child go without. A mother would never turn her back on her child regardless of conduct.

That’s a trap many of us fall into. These days, many of us don’t even allow our children to fail in the first place, but if they do fail, we scramble to make everything right again. The result is that we have an emerging younger generation with little familiarity with the concept of consequences. That’s a concept that even a 5-year-old can understand. I know, because one of my 5-year-old Sunday School students explained it to me.

“If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you have consequences. You’ll be punished,” she said, being careful to pronounce every syllable clearly. Raised in a very stable home, she understands that her parents will always be there for her, but they won’t cheer on sin.

Allowing children to suffer consequences is a form of discipline, and discipline is something that God practices with His children. In fact, you had better hope that God disciplines you. “Blessed is the man whom God corrects, so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty,” God’s Word tells us in Job 5:17. The New Testament is equally clear. “The Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son,” Hebrews 12:6 says. 

Discipline reminds us that we are blessed, that we are loved, that we are children of the Most High God. Just maybe, when we fail to administer biblical discipline by allowing our kids to reap what they have sown, we are failing to love as we are loved. Our children must always know we love them unconditionally – so much so that we won’t administer the help that hurts.