Nouwen: Healing Our Hearts Through Forgiveness
“How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts. Forgiving others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.”—Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).
jennifer
Several years ago, I was with an amazing group of women in Searcy, Arkansas, as we talked about forgiveness. One of the first questions from two women was, “How can I forgive someone who has harmed me or someone I love when they do not see they have done any wrong?”
These are the most complex hurts for me to forgive as well. We think we are doing fine, but then we hear how the people involved see no wrongdoing on their part, and an angry dragon rears his head again. This anger is nothing like our initial reaction, but still endangers our body, mind, and soul. We are allowing the people and the situation to continue to harm us—unless we can transform that energy into something useful for our body and the world.
I think of a small church-related school that many friends were part of that closed overnight. After several years, most of us have worked through the disappointment and have moved on. We will all carry a scar, but for the most part, the wound is healing.
Most of us decided that if we cannot forgive those involved in the closing or those who did nothing to prevent it, they are still hurting us. They occupy space in our minds, lives, bodies, and relationships with others. We all have prayed to transform this hurt’s enormous energy into something positive. We are all now discovering gold—deep down below this pain.
I often go to a place where I remember the children, teachers, and school board singing and carrying small lighted candles through their tears as they walked out into the world in pairs at the conclusion of the school’s last graduation. What I cherish every day is the light that each of those involved at this school now brings to many other schools, homes, churches, and places of work.
We have been sent out to share what we learned from that experience: the relationships, the love, the kindness to others, the acceptance of differences, and the belief in a loving God. For example, Jennifer, in the upper picture, who was on the school board, is now changing more lives as executive director of City Year in Little Rock. In the lower picture is Beth Maze, the school chaplain, who now leads formation at St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, the largest church in our diocese.
There was so much light radiating from that school. That is why it was so hard to leave. But now, we are commissioned to carry the light we received there out into the larger world. We can make a difference in so many other lives, and so many continue to do simply that.
beth