About Forgiveness

When speaking with a client during a phone session the other night, I had received an email about forgiveness.  The story presented was so powerful, I thought to share it here and now for those of us who struggle with forgiveness.

"Ephesians 4:31-32 - "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
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My six year old daughter's voice shocked me on that Saturday morning.  "Can you get Jerry something to eat?"

Turning to look at her in shock, confusion, and surprise, I saw her holding her stuffed giraffe.  I replied, "I thought his name was Leaves."

She smiled totally unaware of how her question had sent my mind into a whirlwind.  "No, he changed it.  His name is Jerry."

I was trying to think of how I could quickly convince this beautiful, yet stubborn, strong-willed, and independent girl that her stuffed giraffe's name was NOT Jerry.

You are probably wondering why it matters if my daughter named her stuffed giraffe Leaves, then Jerry, or some other random name.  Yet "Jerry" is definitely the only name she could echo that would lead to such a profound and immediate response on my part.  You see, I have spent most of my adult life avoiding the name "Jerry".  I am thankful that I have never had a close relationship with anyone named Jerry.  I am grateful nobody else in my family was named Jerry.  Nobody I worked with was named Jerry;  you get the picture.  I have never had a reason to say the name Jerry out loud in any form or fashion throughout my adult life.  For decades now, this man has simply remained "unnamed" in my own mind, body, and spirit.

At some point during the pinnacle of my personal pain, I decided that his identity as a man with that name was no longer worthy of being acknowledged as a proper noun.  He no longer deserved the status that you and I have as human beings.  He was simply a common noun, reduced to being nothing more than a highly offensive noun in a sea of people who were allotted real names and real identities of their own.

Now, here I was faced with a decision---how would I respond to my daughter calling her stuffed animal that she loved so much----"Jerry"?!

Let's rewind a bit.  The power of Jerry's name had held me captive for not just years, but decades.  I could not say his name because I was still choosing not to let go.  I was choosing to not forgive any part of him---let alone all of him.  By choosing not to forgive him, did I believe I was somehow still punishing him for all the pain and torment he caused me?  I think I did.  In other words, I'd rather keep hating him in my mind and heart so I'd have a sense of control over "punishing" him for all the wrong he perpetrated upon me.

You may or may not be at the point of seeing this from my perspective---but I realize now I wasn't punishing him.  I was punishing myself.  I was also allowing myself to remain bonded to "Jerry", and more specifically, traumatically bonded to "Jerry" by my inability to let go of him---and everything he did to cause me such intense pain and suffering.  In my therapist's office soon after the giraffe incident, I had little intent of letting myself be freed from only his name deep inside me.

But God had a different  plan.  As my therapist and I talked, I was led to pray a simple prayer.  It wasn't a magical formula or equation that took years to formulate.  It was just time for me to let God do what He would have done/could have done for me decades earlier.  I gave myself permission to let God take away the pain inside me that I had buried deep down within me as it all had to do with that highly offensive noun who was Jerry the man, Jerry the perpetrator, and Jerry from my own past.

After I prayed, I remember telling her how I never referred to "him" by his name because I didn't think he deserved to be identified.  She asked me to share his name, and I did.  For the first time in decades, I said his name out loud.  "Jerry...his name is Jerry."  Now simply saying a name may not sound like much, but it was representative of a journey I just agreed to with God.  A path of healing that I had been walking since I was a much younger person, but that I rejected as it related to all things and anything to do with that highly offensive noun.  I remembered the truth of Psalm 107:20 in these moments:  "He sent out His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction."

In choosing to say Jerry's name out loud in my therapist's office that day, I was doing more than just forgiving him, I was attesting to God's strength and His sovereignty.  I was attesting to the power of Jesus Christ's Name by being willing to openly speak Jerry's name.  I was allowing God to heal me and deliver me from the destruction that I had buried deep within my own heart and spirit all those many many years ago.  "Confess your faults to one another so that you may receive your healing." (James 5:16)  Yes, Jerry was definitely a fault because his presence no matter how deep I thought I had buried it, was still there!

You may be wrinkling your forehead and wondering "What?!" as you read this.  But for me, by holding my memories of Jerry captive in my own heart and spirit, I was reducing AND rejecting God's power to heal me from that chapter of my life.  I was saying to myself that the power of Christ...in all its many forms....wasn't enough to remove the Jerry-related resentment and bitterness from my heart and spirit.  I had to let go of that resentment and bitterness, not for Jerry's sake---but for my own!  I didn't need to keep holding onto those hot coals of anger, rage,and unforgiveness towards Jerry anymore.

By releasing Jerry's name from that dungeon in the depths of my heart, I was choosing to not sin any more in this way.

If there is a name that you have been avoiding, you probably don't need to take any time to think about it.  It is probably right there on the tip of your own tongue where it has already been lying dormant for weeks, months, years, and/or decades.  How far have you pushed down and buried that name along with all the pain and suffering you know that name and what went with it caused you or someone else you love and care about?  The good news about God is that He will meet you exactly where you are at right now.  Freedom is possible when we learn to let go and let God.  We just forget that fact more often than we should.  Never confuse forgiveness with allowing whomever harmed you to "get away with it".  The wicked never know the peace of the righteous---not ever.

Until next post....

What's In Your Reality?

What's in your reality?  Now there's a question for all of us to ponder...

I remember a client some years ago who told me she couldn't eat anything she cooked on or inside the stove in her apartment, because it would make her ill.  Why?  In her mind, the former tenants who rented the same apartment before her had used contaminated spices and ingredients to cook their food with.  She claimed to still be able to smell those spices and ingredients every time she stepped into her kitchen.  As such, these contaminates must have somehow and permanently worked their way into the burners on the stove top...and inside the oven's walls and grates. As a result, my client found it very difficult to cook or bake anything for fear of getting sick from what she prepared on or in that stove.

When I was training in a local psychiatric unit twenty years ago, I remember when 9-11 happened.  The patients were sitting in the day room, watching television.  I was standing in the hallway half watching also.  Then I saw an airplane on the television fly right into the first tower of the World Trade Center.  As real life events were unfolding before our very eyes, the patients were not at all agitated or upset at what they were viewing.  To them, "reality" was sitting in the day room in those moments and watching television;  nobody had connected the dots about "This horrifying event is truly happening right now!"

For the staff around me, it was quite a different story.  A few nurses basically lost it on the spot and had to go home immediately.  Staff psychiatrists who wouldn't normally be on the floor started showing up within the hour.  The people I worked with (social workers) formed tag teams of "watchers" to follow the news reports whenever anyone was free not running a group or seeing individual patients.  Yet---the patients remained no different than they were the day before.  No patient meltdowns;  no psychotic episodes on the day of  9-11.  By the time I left to go home after my shift, I knew we all had been thrust into a nightmare of potentially global proportions---and yet what struck me most was how "reality" was perceived so differently by the patients on the unit that day.  Even in the few days following, when patients were asked about their thoughts and feelings regarding 9-11, the collective responses basically amounted to "Yeah, and..?"  I understood.  Why should 9-11 matter "more" than the issues that brought them into inpatient treatment in the first place?  After all, if it's not happening to me personally, it's NOT happening to ME personally!

It wasn't until about a week or so later when "new" patients were brought onto the unit that I witnessed the effects of 9-11 on them.  One elderly gentleman kept talking about "bombing the ship", which I later found out was tied to his own wartime experiences from decades before.

Back in 1918, another reality took place similar to the one we are currently experiencing in 2020:  a global pandemic (virus) that affected millions of human beings in any one of a number of ways.  We might never catch the virus;  we might carry the virus and remain asymptomatic;  we might become extremely sick, but not require hospitalization, and then recover.  We might experience a low grade fever and feel otherwise o.k. enough, but then suddenly die.  We might become so sick we require long-term hospitalization and rehab afterward due to organ failure, blood clots, respiratory issues...or all of those in combination. Whether we live or die from a positive or negative COVID-19 test status is not our call, because we either make it through to the other side of it---or we don't.  Period.  I don't really care to watch or hear the endless rantings and ravings from both sides of the argument:  "It's a hoax!"  versus "We're all gonna die!"  Listen, if you want some FACTS about former pandemics instead of blowing it off or scaring yourself witless over it, do your research based on past history!  The "mask" argument was just as vitriolic in 1918 as it is today.  Do we really think nobody has been through this kind of hot mess before but us?  Doh!  A subscription to www.newspapers.com through ancestry.com provides access to ALL the newspaper articles written ALL across the country from that time to this.  At least by doing your research, you may not so easily fall into a trap you can't see or think your way out of.

So again I ask you, what's in your reality?

Fear is the default reality for many of us.  We have lived in a state of fear and anxiety for so long, we have no idea when it all started.  Remember Niccolo Machiavelli?  He was an ancient Italian philosopher who wrote "The Prince".  He either observed or taught politicians of that time what "Real Power" was.  As Machiavelli wrote:  "Real power is....fear."  Like some of us didn't already know this right?  Sheesh!   Read up on this dude if you want your eyes opened on the topic of fear mongering in the public arena---and in politics.  (NOTE:  No "one" political party does it better or more often than the other;  they ALL do it!  Power corrupts, but absolute power absolutely corrupts.)

Rather than being grateful for much...we are suspicious of much more.  Rather than living in peace...we live in pieces.  Rather than believing in the facts of any given situation, we instead believe in our feelings.  Do you know what a sh** show this will lead to when we ignore seeking out an objective analysis of "all so-called facts" being presented in the broadcast or print media?  (Which, by the way, can easily end up in the same dumpster with my former client and her so-called "knowledge" of the facts associated with those contaminated spices and ingredients that people she never even met used to cook with in her apartment!)

I can tell you that every time some a**h**e zooms past me on the road at 95 mph or higher, I have to wonder what "facts" he or she is operating under in those moments.  I already know having a death wish and acting on it randomly on public roadways represents its own form of psychotic behavior.  I just don't want to be taken out because of someone else's inability to deal with reality in a more "balanced" manner!

So the next time you are feeling agitated, anxious, and/or panicked about all that is going on in your reality, as you perceive it, that may just be the time to Stop!  Breathe!  Relax!...and then make that phone call to a psychotherapy professional who can offer a hand up to help you out of that pit of your own creation.  As I've shared in the past, www.psychologytoday.com has on its website the "Find A Therapist" icon you can browse through for your chosen zip code area of service.

If you need a book to read first that will encourage you in this regard, pick up a copy of Michael Singer's "The Untethered Soul", available at most public libraries.  Pay particular attention to the "thorn" analogy and what that means to those who let fear function as their boss on a daily basis...

Until next post...