Forgiveness

I saw an old acquaintance today … from afar. She and her husband were going about an errand. I never knew her well. We’d just wave in passing or chat, momentarily about something superficial. This went on for years. Then, one day, we turned a small corner.

She saw me with Lelu one sunny morning and came over to ask about this little girl … my then 4-year-old step-granddaughter. As Lelu played just a short distance away, I detailed the winding path-like story of how this little one and I are related. It’s a story that I’m always hesitant and somewhat embarrassed to tell. It’s complicated. It’s a story that began with a rocky foundation of anger, hatred, blame, manipulation, distance, time, caution and mistrust that grew into one of innocence, reflection, self-evaluation and love. Not what any of us expected. But it surprised me—that day—as it has a thousand times since, to learn that it is not a story that’s exclusive to us.

That day, my acquaintance shared her painful story of estrangement from her daughter. The daughter she raised. The adult daughter she loves. The daughter she was helping to plan a wedding. The daughter who, in a rage, blew up at her mother for being controlling. The same daughter who hasn’t spoken to her in more than eight years.

As my acquaintance walked away, I said a silent prayer for her and daughter. For healing. For forgiveness.
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I just finished reading Night by Elie Weisel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. It is the true story of one boy's recollection of the unimaginable horrors done to the Jewish people during Nazi Germany. It is the story of Elie’s people, and thousands of others. It is the story of how twisted and evil things become from believing we are somehow better or superior than someone else.

The young Weisel watches his beloved family killed before him … babies, elders, innocents. He wonders where God is in all of it. He loses his faith completely in the hell that surrounds him. It takes him years before he can tell his story. In the back of the book is his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, delivered on December 10, 1986. He speaks with “deepest gratitude as one who has emerged from the Kingdom of Night.” His speech opens with a Jewish tradition … a prayer of gratitude to God: “Blessed be Thou … for giving us this life, for sustaining us and for enabling us to reach this day.”

* * * * *
Why do we covet forgiveness … doling it out so selfishly and often only in fragments? What would it cost us to be more generous with it? What would we have to lose? On the surface, the answer seems so simple. But, in life, it is so complicated. Or does it have to be? Would I forgive someone I am angry with today, if tomorrow I learned I was dying? Could I forgive some horrible past sin committed against me? If I was Elie? God did. He still does. He loved us SO much that He sent his only son to save us. And two thousand plus years later, we’re still committing horrible sins against him … every day. Yet, He forgives us. That’s a difficult thing for me to wrap my mind around. My same petty little mind that often becomes indignant over someone’s thoughtless comment or ribbing. My same little mind that tells me every day that I don’t deserve that kind of forgiveness.

Then I’m reminded of the good that could come from offering forgiveness freely. Peace … among enemies. Among countries. Among families. Among couples. Among fathers and sons. Among a mother and her daughter … still related by blood after 8+ years of not speaking.

“We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.” --Elie Wiesel