It's Not About The Baggage You Have, It's About What You Do With It.

I was reading. Father Fiction by Donald Miller. I have read nearly the entire book thus far and got many good points from it, but then, this. just. hit. me. HARD. In between the ribs. Deep in my chest.

"When you forgive, you bear the burden somebody has given you without holding them accountable...there was still pain, we might still be paying the price for the wrong that was done to us. It's just that we aren't going to make the other person pay for what they'd done; we'd forgiven them."

That's like the essence of my daily life in regards to the affair. And my childhood. And relationships with some friends. And family.

Rob Bell talks about forgiveness in the Nooma video called Luggage. He makes a distinction between giving forgiveness and consequences. When you forgive, you can work on a relationship with the person has hurt you. I can see that in my marriage. But, when you forgive, sometimes, the consequence of the hurt is letting that person go. Either way, forgiveness comes when you wish a person well. It doesn't mean that there is no pain, no consequence. It doesn't meant that the action didn't exist. Or that the repeated betrayals never occurred. Or that the destructive words weren't said. Because they were. And denial is no healthy form of dealing with something.

Forgiveness doesn't mean to forget. Forgiveness means that you are not going to let the doings impact your life or your future, aside from making your grow. In a way, it is taking responsibility for the actions of another. To forgive, you are saying to them that their hurtful ways, whether intentional or unintentional, are not being held against them. And that whatever hurt has been done will be yours to work through, without placing the blame on them. Through that, the hurt subsides a little.

One additional point that I would like to make is this: forgiveness is not a one-time done deal. In some instances, it is. If my son hits my daughter with a block, she may forgive him. And once she does, it's in the past. We never revisit it. It's over. We move foward with playing. When it's a deep hurt, like an affair or abuse or repeated offenses, you may forgive and forgive and forgive. Each element of each offense may need to be forgiven. And, you may be fine, until one day, one trigger, one item, one word, brings back a memory that hurts all over again. Then, you need to forgive again. Slowly, the overall hurt begins to fade.

Although I could write on this forever, I'm going to cut it short (look for more in the future) and leave you with this video by Rob Bell.


Luggage 007 - Nooma - Rob Bell - Legendado from there. on Vimeo.