Forgiveness

About a month ago, Lizzy had to forgive me, for the second weekend in a row, and it was miserable.  It wasn't even a big deal, and she wasn't that concerned.*  But it bothered me for days.

Sin itself is painful, and the knowledge that I had hurt her (even a little) swelled as a foreign compassion in me.  And the frequency of my need for forgiveness made me feel like an idiot.  And she had to forgive me for something I was trying to avoid [or at least knew I should avoid, and didn't].  That made me feel weak, and immature, and miserable.

But as difficult as such realizations are, receiving her forgiveness was even moreso.

Because, to receive forgiveness, I had to acknowledge that I was not the knight in shining armor I've hoped to be.  In the past, I'd excused my sins as products of a season of life, or as done in ignorance, or as mistakes.  But Elizabeth, strong and loving as she is, left no room for that.  Instead, in her grace, I suddenly saw myself broken and revealed, as I had not in years.  And I could no longer hold up the image of having it all together, nor could I fix what I had broken.  And yet our relationship was not severed, for in her peculiar grace, Lizzy bore the brokenness for me.  It is a weight that I fiercely desire to bear alone, my brokeness, and yet a weight that would crush me in proud isolation.  Her bearing of that weight, her forgiveness offered freely, chose to take on the pain of my sin so that she might continue in relationship with me*.

She turns my thoughts towards God.  Is this the nature of my sin against him, division-making and heart-wrenching, ugly in every way and self-embittering?  Is this the nature of His grace, that I must determine to simply continue in the relationship He maintains, unable to earn or make much of myself in any way, and unable to promise healing on my own?

Because indeed, Lizzy's forgiveness presents two options to me.  I must either run from relationship and the realities of sin and grace, or be forgiven and thereby continue together.  Or to frame the options within two questions- is a continued relationship worth acknowledging the reality of the pain I caused?  And am I willing to let my sin stand in the light, and that very brokenness be covered by the love of another?

Were I to run, I would find myself alone, calloused, and cruel.  I knew this, and I know it.  The only healing for my heart is in allowing those I love (God and people) to drag my sin into the light, and then to receive relationship from those I love as grace- the free, unmerited gift that it is.  But you see, this grace comes with ugly preparations, for it cannot be planted but in the overturned soil of the repentant heart.  Such is relationship with Elizabeth, and such is relationship with the Lord.

My pride and my flesh compel me to dismiss all the realities of sin and to meditate on the platitudes of self-help books and self-esteem mantras.  Yet to do so actively rejects relationship with the Lord**, for these behaviors maintain the lie that we are worthy in ourselves, and that to love us is not condescension.  But it is.  He stooped very, very low.  In sin's isolation He was broken for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  The weight of all our relational brokenness fell with finality upon His shoulders.  And therefore if relationship is to continue with Him, we must acknowledge that He is the bearer of our brokenness.  We cannot run from the reality of our failures and to the Lord, lest we negate His very greatest act of forgiving love.


I've never thought so much about how much I fear letting people down, but if this relationship has made anything clear (other than the beauty and loved-ness of Elizabeth), it is that very thing.  I fear disappointing, fear the eye that searches for one more worthy, one more perfect than me.  And while that is a risk with any person, I must trust.  And I can trust, and hope, only because I have received Love that is not hunting for someone better, Love that is secure and indwelling and sanctifying.  So I can dare to receive love, and potentially be hurt by my own failures or inadequacies.  Because ultimately my deepest essence, my baseline, my foundation, my heartbeat, is no longer alienation and despair, but the present love of God, whether I feel it or sense it or rejoice in it or not.  So I choose to continue in relationships, to be loved past my failure, small and large.  Because such is the love of God, and such is the love I am learning to receive, and the love in which I am coming to rejoice.  And because it is a very good thing,  I am deeply grateful for it.

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*edited in after some confusion.  My aforementioned sin was not enormous, earth shattering, or life-altering, certainly no more than any sin is.  However, like all sin, it did separate, and did require a bridge to continue relationship.  This bridge, offered by Elizabeth's forgiveness, is by far the largest and most life-altering of things in this blog post.  If you remain concerned about the various sins in my life and how I repent and such things, know that they are topics which I am always open and vulnerable about with close friends, and topics which I am usually willing to share with anyone who asks, with very few exceptions.

**still blows my mind that relationship with her is an option at all, from the get-go.

***read that again, because I really mean it.