Several years ago, a coworker game me a plaque for my desk that said, “It is What It Is.” She told me I always said that and when she saw the plaque, she thought of me.
Until that moment I did not realize that was a phrase I used a lot. But it made sense. I have for some time been working on accepting the situations life throws at me. Occasionally even choosing to let go of my desire to fight back against situations I don’t like recognizing that I am not able to fix everything, no matter how much I may want to. And perhaps, accepting that the situation is not mine to fix.
So, I guess it was not a stretch for me to say during the past 18 months that, “It was what it was” as I continued to heal the broken places in my life. There is an acceptance in that too. An acceptance that my story, like many stories though painful, need not define me. An acceptance that I can own my story instead of spending far too many hours trying to ‘fix’ my story into one that is less painful. Acceptance is good. It certainly has been an important part of my healing process. But I was touched this morning by the realization that acceptance is not enough. Forgiveness is the real answer. Forgiveness offers true freedom.
In her book, Sacred Threshold: Crossing the Inner Barrier to a Deeper Love, Paula D’Arcy says:
“…I’ve learned that we avoid our own healing at great cost. Until the work of forgiveness is begun, until we learn the language of gratitude, until we understand the small nature of much that we call love, we will repeat the same patterns and miss the portals that might set us free.” She added, “If only we could see (and I’ll add love) people the way they are (and for who they are) and not the way we want them to be.”
Paula was speaking about the difficult relationship she’d had with her father her whole life. She had for years avoided going to visit her parents because it was so hard to be around her father. They seemed to always be at odds with each other. It was easier to stay away. Then her father became very ill and she recognized there was not much time left. A friend asked her what her relationship with her father might be if she could forgive him for not loving her the way she needed to be loved and just love him as he was.
The idea was like a thunderbolt for her and it was for me as well. Accepting that something “is what it is” and the people in our life “are who they are” is important. Forgiveness at its fullest level goes much deeper. There is a vulnerability to forgiveness that asks me to love first rather than seek to put my need for love at center stage. It calls me to love a person and let go of the truth perhaps that they did not love me as I needed/wanted to be loved. Richard Rohr said, “one of the we need to do is forgive each other for not being what the other needs.” This statement is true for spouses, parents, friends, and siblings.
We all have our stories of people and relationships that have disappointed us. People who we feel have left emotional scars on us because they let us down in some way. Those scars are part of our brokenness and part of their brokenness too. Our stories are all connected. And, although there are certainly exceptions, most of the people who hurt and disappoint us do not do so out of a desire to cause us pain. They are typically doing the best they can given the broken sense of self they carry with them.
Love as God loves
Forgiveness asks each of us to love as God loves, loving the people in our lives as they are in all of their gloriousness and in all of their brokenness. God’s love is not dependent on our getting things right. If it was, we would all be in trouble for none of us can get this thing we call life right all of the time (or honestly even most of the time). Can we try and love the people in our lives and the ones that God puts in our lives the way they are and not the way we want or feel we need them to be. Can we put aside our judgement?
Maybe one of the reasons Paula’s story resonated so strongly with me is that my own relationship with my own father was difficult. Looking through a lens of forgiveness lets me stop and recognize that being a parent does not automatically flip a switch within us and remove all the pain and hurt that influences our behavior and our lives. Today, I feel a deeper compassion for my dad combined with a sense of sadness that he is gone and I can no longer hug him and love him unconditionally with no expectations of what he can offer me in return. I know he knows and I know I can use this lesson with others in my life.
Loving without judgement is a gift you can give. Who in your life has disappointed you? Who needs your forgiveness? Who needs to feel your unconditional love? My dad is gone, but there are people in my life I have ‘accepted’ but not ‘forgiven.’ I’m getting ready to change that. I’ll let you know what happens. I’d like to hear how it goes for you too.
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