The lyric in the title is from Embers and Envelopes by Mae. The song I listened to for weeks in preparation for forgiving my mother, a process for those of you who know me well was not easy. My mother had made quite a number of selfish decisions when my sister and I were growing up. Decisions made in haste and anger that she probably didn’t think of twenty minutes after she made them, but decisions that scarred me in explicable ways and the repercussions of which I deal with to this very day. When I realized my need to live the way Jesus lived, He knew I was ready to leave my mother’s house to go live with my dad in California. On my very first day of school he placed a girl named Amanda Turner in my life, who immediately invited me to New Song. Within a couple months God had softened my heart towards my mother and I knew I was slowly following him towards forgiveness and the freedom that came with it. First I had to let go of my anger, which was particularly hard to do because while I was living in California with my dad, my sister was still with our mom and things were going on that as a protective big sister, I hated. There was no moment in which I was suddenly at peace with what had happened to me and continued to happen to my little sister. It was a grueling process that lasted for over a year. I couldn’t speak to her or even about her without anger taking over and undoing everything I had learned about God’s love and forgiveness for all of His children. So I didn’t. I spoke only to and about my little sister, that was it. It got gradually easier until without even realizing it, I could think about my mom and even hear about her latest “stunt” without even flinching. But while it was a big step, it wasn’t the final destination.. I hadn’t forgiven her yet. One day, out of the blue, I heard someone say, “It doesn’t take ten years to forgive someone and it certainly didn’t take God ten years to forgive you.” And that was it. One of the very few milestones in my life as a Christian where a switch was flipped and change was instantaneous.
Flash forward. After living with my dad for three years, I’ve come to realize he is not the man I thought he was. His house, though far away from my mother’s, was not the safe haven I had prayed for. I am not going to go into quite as much detail on this one because I am still going through a healing process and I’m not ready to discuss it in the same way I can with what I went through with my mother. In the past couple months God has shown me the extent to which the state of my relationship with my dad affects every other relationship I have, especially with God Himself. Once agan, I hear him calling me towards the familar duo, forgiveness and freedom. You’d think having gone through this process before, I’d get how it works and know how to behave, right? Far from it. You see, I am more grounded in my identity in Christ than I was when I forgave my mother. I know that I am His beloved daughter and He truly does treasure me. Unfortunatey, these things have gone to my head and I have let myself believe that I deserve an apology and a change of heart from my dad before any change of heart is to be made on my part. Not consciously, I let myself believe that any wrong doing on my part in our relationship was a result of crappy parenting and was obviously not my fault.
What. A. Lie.
I’d like to say that upon realizing what was going on beneath the surface, I changed my attitude. Sadly, I cannot. I wanted, no, demanded an apology. I wanted my dad to feel just the slightest bit of regret, for him to show just the slightest bit of the kind of love my Heavenly Father shows to me. This self-righteousness went on for weeks.. until last Saturday. Fallon, Ryana, and I went to Refuge House of Prayer for eight hours of prayer and worship. At about the fourth hour a group of people came up on stage for what I’ll call the “forgiveness segment” of the day. They were paired up (the funky parenthesis (I don’t know what they’re really called) are to make it easier for you to pick out the pairs): {Senior Pastor & Senior Leader}, {Pastor & Church Member}, {Husband & Wife}, {Father & Son}, {Father and Daughter}. Each person from the pair represented a much larger group. One senior pastor for all senior pastors, one husband for all husbands, one father for all fathers, etc. Then each person from each pair apologized to the other. When I say apologized, I mean apologized, with weeping and sorrow and genuine repentance. When the father on behalf of all fathers apologized to his daughter for all daughters, my pride was shattered and I knew exactly why God brought me to Rancho Cucamonga for eight hours.
God is so good. He gave me the apology I selfishly demanded through a stranger who didn’t even know my name. It wasn’t my dad, but he might as well have been. The man apologized.. and I’m going to personalize this for you the way it was for me.. The man apologized for not treating me with love and respect, for not loving me the way God has loved me, for any kind of abuse he put me through, for not showing me what I deserve in a man, etc. Weeping, he told me I am beautiful and worth pursuit.
And now I don’t care if my dad ever realizes any of those things. Someone cared enough to apologize to all daughters of God, and I had no choice but to forgive this father on behalf of all fathers. Even mine. Especially mine.
There’s a lot more I could say about forgiveness, but I’m just going to end this here.
God bless you. Truly.
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