Hard Lessons of Forgiveness

Forgiveness can be a tricky thing. Many people, including myself, are able to talk about forgiveness as an important task in order to move on. Some people, not-so-much including myself, are also able to actually do it in their mind, heart and Spirit instead of just vocally forgiving the person(s) who have wronged them. A friend of mine, Margaret Feinberg, recently wrote a book titled The Sacred Echo. In it she so eloquently talks about how God communicates to us anyway he can—directly or indirectly. Hence the title, Margaret’s thesis is that God continually uses the ‘echoes’ in our lives (the reoccurring smaller, more indirect occurrences in our everyday lives) to reiterate the big idea he is trying to communicate. Such a thing has happened to me recently:

Forgiveness = Freedom

Two different ‘echoes’ have convicted me to this post. First, Mike Foster recently gave me a copy of his book, Deadly Viper Character Assassins. From p. 51-57 he (and co-writer Jud Wilhite) talks about the Precedent of Grace. Here is the portion that I couldn’t shake from my head for the last week:

“A new model of belonging, respect, and grace is needed to move from a culture of concealment at work to a culture of honesty. We must hold high the values of forgiveness and second chances. What are your secrets that you are afraid might come out? Is it better to live in fear or freedom?”

If there is one thing that I really make a concerted effort on, it’s being totally transparent at all times—if anything, pretty much every single person closest to me continues to tell me that I’m too transparent and need to stop pouring my guts out to every stranger or media person I come in contact with. Good or bad, that’s just not me because no matter who I talk to, no matter what the other person’s intentions are, I roll with full disclosure. But the part of Mike’s words that really hit me was the last question: “is it better to live in fear or freedom.” Over the past week “Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.” has been echoing throughout my Spirit.

Then as I was getting ready for work this morning a song by the Casting Crows came on, Here I Go Again. This song talks about a person whose best friend is dying and the person feels convicted because he/she always dodges talking about the God stuff, and now it might be too late. Here is the portion that I couldn’t shake from my head:

“Lord you love him so; you gave your only son. If he will just believe, he will never die. How then will he know what he has never heard—Lord he has never seen mirrored in my life. Maybe this time, I’ll speak the words of life with your fire in my eyes. But that old familiar fear, it’s tearing at my words. What am I so afraid of, because here I go again talking about the rain; mulling over things that don’t live past today. As I dance around the truth, time is not his friend—this might be my last chance to tell him that you love him…but here I go again.”

And at that moment I felt like a fraud. I stand in public and talk about Christ’s unconditional love, as we are all his children made in his image, and yet I am still harboring a special place of hate and resentment in my heart for a select few people. Then the final association hit—I loathe, fear, and I am crippled by these few people like many of my brothers and sisters in Christ feel about gays and lesbians who are, or were, close to them at one time. No longer will I do that. So here is my freedom through truth, freedom through forgiveness not spoken, but contently given to God. It’s taken many years for me to get here, but if I’m to publically move forward for what the Lord has asked of me, then I can have no place for secret hate—even if no one knows but me. Here is my secret list of people I am forgiving once and for all:

For the past four years there has been a man who just won’t leave me alone—not The Marin Foundation, not anything I do, say or write. He runs to any newspaper or magazine that will listen to him and he spews hate against me and what the Lord has asked me to do. He lies about me—he blatantly makes up things I’ve said, things I do or things I’ve done, and he just won’t stop. One day, with vengeance in mind, I Googled his full birth name (that I found out from one of his relatives that I so happened to meet). And wouldn’t you know that the very first thing that popped up was his mug shot and home address because he is a registered sex offender for molesting a young boy in the late 90s. He’s covered everything up really well because he has a new identity. He is a very successful businessman, heavily involved with child advocacy rights in his community, and he donates A LOT of money. No one knows the truth—but now I did. I printed his sex offender page off the internet and I’ve hid that page in my cabinet for the past 3 years, waiting, for just the right moment to publically hold it up in front of TV cameras, reporters and a huge group of people—finally exposing this man, his lies and false motives. But I’m not going to hide it anymore. I burned it today. It’s gone, it’s given up and committed to the Lord an no more will I feel like I have to defend myself against this man and the media outlets that love to listen to his garbage. I forgive you. And I am now going to be intentional about learning to love you because you are no less of a child of God than me. I am free from your traps; I have released myself for carrying you as a secret burden and thank you for being the one to bring this all to light.


I also forgive two people who used to be very, very close to me. They have decided to go in another direction and say negative things about me and tell some media gossip folks partial truths to very personal things that we all experienced together. I forgive you. I will no longer deny what you two meant to me, and how you two set me on the path the Lord destined me to be on. You two still mean the world to me, and that is why I resented you and what you did so very much. I have released myself for carrying you as a secret burden. Thank you for letting me love you, and one day I pray we can all connect again and restore what we had years ago.

Overall, the media has not been my friend. People always tell me, “no media is bad media.” Well, I don’t agree. But from now on I am releasing my secret burden, resentment and hate, to control what others say, twist or write about me. I can only be me, transparent and honest, and how others use that for their story line is up to them. I forgive them, and I am looking forward to the next opportunity I will have to be honest and transparent all over again—no matter what.

A benediction in closing:

Thank you Lord for allowing me to be free to forgive and free to live my life the absolute fullest I can through your unrelenting grace. Allow me to never change my transparency because I’m scared of what might happen with it. Thank you Lord for this opportunity to release these secret burdens that no longer will haunt my Spirit. In Jesus’ holy name—Amen.

Much love.
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