Category: forgiveness

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forgiveness sorry

Sorry/Forgiveness

My beautiful dipstick dog stuck under the throw
My beautiful dog after being released from captivity

Yes I know one picture is from the other day but I thought you’d like to see the sequence

I think the dog forgave the throw for capturing him but I’m not sure. As the “kind” dog-mummy I am I did make him wait for his release until I had taken the first photo.

This is a follow on from my post the other day looking at Sorry. Please, if you haven’t read Beth’s comments about what they get up to at her kindergarten with their children around forgiveness/sorry do go back to read them. They are awesome. I wish I’d done that with my children when they were little

As I’ve said before there are times when God/The Universe just keep highlighting things and this is what has happened with the Sorry/Forgiveness things. I was watching The Way on BBC iplayer the other day and there is a part towards the end where one character says to the other – “I forgive you” and the response is “But I didn’t say sorry”. [I won’t tell you who says what to who because you might want to watch it. Be warned the link has spoiler alerts!]

What stuck me in following on from that previous Sorry post is that it is the forgiving that releases us rather than the saying sorry. The forgiver is able to let go, to move on, and to find their own direction. It doesn’t need someone to say “Sorry” for each of us to be able to forgive.

As happened on the Cross Jesus says “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” Luke 23:34 [which is actually quite similar to the thing the one character does to the other. She thinks she was doing a good thing but he did not see it that way] Jesus didn’t wait until the people who crucified him said they were sorry. And it is possible some of them never were sorry because they did not see what they had done was wrong.

As with Beth’s children it is not about saying Sorry and moving on but about the child who has been hurt being able to say what they need to make them feel better.

Within the context of the TV program she had said and done things along the way that had help restore his self-worth, had given him the things that made him feel better for the slight that had been committed.

As with all things we have to slow down, to understand what our hurts are and what would make us feel better. As I heard on Drew Jackson’s podcast about Poetry as a Spiritual Practice often anger can be the surface emotion to something much deeper. But we do have to slow down to be able to really find that – whether that be through poetry, free writing which is my go-to, prayer, long walks, or whatever – find that thing that helps us explore deeper what we are really feeling and what will make us feel restored.

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forgiveness sorry

Say You’re Sorry

My dog on our local beach back in Feb 2018. When Google photos showed me this memory I had to say sorry for moaning about it being a wee bit windy and chilly today. Definitely not as cold as it was 6 years ago!

Not sure if you had it when you were a kid but I know I did and I know I did the same with my children – “Say sorry” and then “tell them you forgive them” followed by “now go and play together nicely”. As if the perpetrator saying sorry made things alright and the one who had had wrong done to them just had to accept that.

In a book I was reading recently this young couple go from hating each other to not being able to get enough of each other when both say sorry and accept the others apology and forgive them. But I also have a friend who was in a bad accident in which he over took three cars and then hit a tractor that was the lead vehicle which was turning right. Either the tractor was not indicating or my friend did not see the indicator. As he says the road was long and safe for the overtake he just did not think the tractor was going to turn. So yes he was in the wrong and has apologized but the person he hit, he feels, has been antagonised by his apology. The tractor driver’s response has upset my friend greatly.

My friend is very genuine in his apology but I think the person he ran into was so badly shaken by the accident that he is not yet in a place to accept the apology.

I do wonder if, especially as Christians, we think that if we say sorry that will ease the situation but sometimes it makes it worse. I don’t know the driver of the tractor but I wonder if he’s thinking “it might be ok for you to be sorry but I could have had your death on my conscious for the rest of my life. And also I’ve now got to wait for the insurance company to sort things out before I can carry on with my job” I don’t know if that is what he’s thinking of if it is just a “f**k you” response because he is still shaken by it, still dealing with his trauma.

Jesus says we should forgive seventy times seven [Matthew 18:21-22] and forgive us our sins as we forgive others who have sinned against us [Matthew 6:12-14] – these verses are about asking God to forgive us not another human being. God, I think, is amazing and forgives us all things if we are genuinely sorry, but that’s because God doesn’t have all sorts of issues lurking about in God’s psych that inhibit that. All of us human beings come with traumas, hurts, played out scenes that our primordial brain goes to first and we react from there. We run through scenarios that often we don’t even realise we are doing but our primordial brain [elephant brain] does not forget and then tells our conscious brain how to react. From there we go into fight, flight, fawn, freeze, etc [meerkat brain] and from there react.

Some people will respond to an innocent request with anger because it has trigger something deep inside that they don’t even know about. So when we say sorry for something we don’t know what we are triggering within the person we are speaking to.

So I think we need to yes ask for forgiveness but then leave it there and not get upset if the person doesn’t respond to how we would like. Almost like leaving it in their porch and they can decide if they want to open it or not. And then we go to God to ask them to forgive us and to search our hearts. And maybe we also need to then forgive the person who did not accept our apology as we would have liked.

So we clear everything away from our hearts, give it all to God, realise it is about forgiveness rather than just saying sorry then who knows how much calmer and more peaceful we will feel?

keeping the door ajar for forgiveness
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Encounter forgiveness

Hagar

For me the beach alone early in the morning is a great place for me to encounter God.

The Bible version of the story of Hagar can be found in Genesis 16

At our last youth group we were looking at the names of God and by mistake I picked out the verses where Hagar runs away from Sarah but meets with God in a big way. She is the first person to say “God sees me” [Gen 16:13] Amazing.

Lots of this story we gloss over but it was horrendous and where I struggle to get my head round Abraham can be one of the founders of the Jewish, and subsequently Christian faith. Hagar was a slave. We don’t know her nationality so she could have been trafficked, stolen from her family, sold by her family. She has no past in the Bible. But she was there to be used to her mistress, Sarah. Hagar is probably very young, and probably a virgin. As we know in the story Sarah and Abraham couldn’t have any children so Sarah “gives” her maidservant to Abraham to have a child with. That is the line that is used. Do we ever think about it too much? Abraham had sex with Hagar, whether she wanted it or not. He raped her. I suspect he raped her more than once just to make sure she was pregnant. Hagar is loses her virginity to serve her owners. It is very similar to what went on in the slave plantations where the master would have sex with his slaves. Funny how we don’t often put this story in that context.

Anyway Hagar gives Sarah what she wanted and Sarah is angry that Hagar has a child and also we get the feeling that Abraham is fond of the child and possibly of this nubile young woman he has raped. Sarah is abusive to her maidservant, the mother of the child that would be classed as Sarah’s. In the end Hagar behaves like a lot of young girls I know would do, she runs away. And it says she leaves her baby some distance away to die. I wonder if she liked the boy? Can one love a child of rape? Some can. Some can’t. I am suspecting she would have been grateful if Ishmael had died. Maybe she believed that if he was no longer about she could get on with her life, forget she’d had a child. Thankfully God knew that she would always love that baby and it would always be apart of her. A baby once conceived is part of a woman forever whether it lives or dies, miscarries or is terminated, very few women every forget that baby.

So there is Hagar weeping under a tree hoping that her baby dies and she can then run away somewhere. And God appears. He reassures her. He shows unconditionally love. But here is what I find the most amazing – God tells Hagar to go back to her abusers. I know my reaction would have been to say “really! Like I love all the things you’ve said about my boy. I claim them. But to go back. I don’t think so”.

What struck me as I was doing a potted telling of this story to my youth group was that Hagar must have had to forgive Sarah and Abraham before she went back. Otherwise she would have gone back all full of anger and hate and resentment and that energy would have caused issues with her relationship with Sarah and Abraham. Hagar had to full forgive them. Then Ishmael could be a full son, could be fully loved, and could gain all that God has promised.

But I think I know how Hagar was able to forgive. Because she had had an encounter with God. Because she knew God loved her unconditionally. God loved her as a slave, a victim of rape, of abuse, of displacement. God saw her for all she really was and loved her unconditionally. I wonder if we can only fully forgive others once we know God fully sees us and all we are. God fully loves us and all we are.

Perhaps if each of us realised we were fully seen, fully loved by the Creator of the Universe then we would be able to fully see and fully love others and not be afraid of what they might do, say, take, react?

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forgiveness magic

The Magic Of Forgiveness

Even though this is a beautiful landscape, when one reads the tales of a large part of not just North Wales, the UK, but the whole world, there are stories of fighting which come about due to lack of forgiveness.

I have written a few posts about forgiveness on and off, especially connected around my explorations of The Lord’s Prayer, but one thing that struck me recently is “the magic of forgiveness.”

What do I mean by that?

Well we get taught a lot about how forgiveness is important as it stops us having to hold on to the other person’s wrongs, how it helps us to see clearly, but I have noticed too that it clears the air.

Often those we have to forgive most of all are those who are closest to us – partners, children, parents, other family members, close friends – because they touch our buttons most often. But what I’ve noticed is if I can feel myself getting wound up by someone, whether friend or family, if I go straight into forgiveness mode then the atmosphere lightens, generally we can chat openly about what needs to be talked about, and even if we still disagree we are together in a lighter place. If on the other hand if I decide that I am angry with that person, that they don’t deserve to have my forgiveness then actually I finish up being grouchy, the atmosphere is heavy and the other person is more obnoxious, angry, and in fighting mode.

An example is of a job I acquired as if by magic. Things were taking a while to come together and it looked, to me, as though people were deliberately trying to curtail it so I was niggled by them. Then I believe God spoke to me and told me I was being pedantic and needed to forgive. So I did. Well an amazing thing happened. Within in a day or so I got an email which basically told me the job was mine. Magic! All those barriers that they had been saying needed to be dealt with suddenly vanished. I do now believe it was me standing in the way and once I got down of my high horse and forgave then God could move things along.

So when I feel myself not wanting to forgive I just ask myself if I want to see Forgiveness work its magic. And if I’m honest there are some days when I think “yes I do” and other days when I think “no I can’t be bothered.” But hopefully as I grow more in trusting the Creator of the Universe with things rather than thinking I know best I will be able to work more of that Forgiveness Magic.

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forgiveness Lord's Prayer

Forgiveness Part Three

As Forgiveness parts one and two both started with a photo of my dog I felt that I had to start Forgiveness part three with the dog even though this picture has no relevance to the post 🙂

So Sunday we did Forgive us our Sins as we forgive those who Sin against us in youth group.

I used the “sin” translation because SIN, I was told years ago and it has stayed with me, comes from an archery term that means “missing the gold mark at the centre of the target.” So really sin/sinning is just missing God’s mark rather than trying to work out what we’ve done wrong. We “all have sinned and fallen short the glory of God.” We’re not bad people, we’re just human and cannot make God’s mark day in day out and I think God finds that ok.

Something I feel I was taught wrongly though was that Forgiveness is conditional. I was taught that God would only forgive me if I forgave others. Now I’m not so sure. Surely if that were the case then that makes God’s love conditional when in fact God’s love is unconditional. God’s love is not based on anything I do, say, don’t do, don’t say, think, don’t think, behave, etc. God thinks I am awesome no matter what. And if is from that basis that I am safe to forgive others.

I watch it with the children I now work with in after-school club. Those who are in a secure place, who trust that we as their play-leaders like them, or from homes where they know they are loved, are much quicker to say Sorry to a fellow after-school club friend than those who don’t feel so secure. It isn’t whether they are or not but how secure they feel in that.

We are all loved unconditionally by God but some of us believe that more than others. As Paul says though that shouldn’t make us want to do more wrong things. In fact that security makes it easier for us to say sorry and try to “hit God’s mark” more often. As one of the young people in the youth group said, because God forgives us it gives us a second chance to make mistakes. I love that. That assurance that we are free to make more mistakes, rather than fear that some adult Christians have that if God forgives them then they shouldn’t make that mistake again.

One of the amazing things that we see if we read the about the life of Jesus is how ready he was to forgive. Not to forgive when that person was sorry, when they forgave others, when they were even ready to be forgiven but to just forgive because that is what true love is.

Some of the last words Jesus says whilst dying horribly on the cross were

Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing

Luke 23:34

These people he was forgiving were jeering him, gambling for his clothes, generally pleased that he was gone. Not at all repentant and asking for forgiveness. Yet Jesus still forgave them with his dying breath.

There is a selfish reason why we should forgive. Not so God loves us more because that is a given. But we should forgive because it is better for us. It is a proven medical fact that people who truly forgive are healthy, happier, live longer, and are more open to the changes in the world around them. They are not fearful, not anxious, and are ready to let others into their lives. Check out what the Mayo clinic says about the power of forgiveness

And if you fancy reading more check out the book “The Body Keep The Score” to see more, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.

Neither of these things might be Christian per se but they seem to advocate very clearly the importance of what Jesus was teaching in that line in the Lord’s Prayer.

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forgiveness freedom

Forgiveness Part Two

Woodland walk. just me and my dog. A space to think. April 1st 2023. Photographed by myself.

I was going to write a post about another thing that keeps niggling at me but I felt I wanted to revisit Forgiveness before I can really let it go.

I’m not sure if it is forgiveness or the things that one needs to forgive that start to loom large once God hooks one onto a topic. But just recently it has felt like there are things with spikes, like those seed cases that stick to one as one walks through a wood, or have to be tugged from the dog’s fur, things that I thought I’d “dealt with” via various QEC and inner healing journaling stuff but that nip at me when I’m not quite noticing.

A thing that not only QEC but other inner trauma type healings talk of doing is to be aware of one’s vagus nerve and how one is reacting – fight, fight, freeze, fawn – and how to bring it back to feeling calm, peaceful and filled with deep joy. Not happiness but contentment and something 100 times deeper than happiness.

But these little sticky seed cases aren’t heavy. The dog can continue his walk when he has them. They don’t slow him down. But these small sticky things that I need to forgive for the millionth time do slow me down. They make me grouchy, which makes me tired, which makes me uncreative. And I really don’t like to be uncreative.

And that for me is my awareness; when I feel uncreative, when I don’t want to write anything at all. Sometimes I write angry pieces which I don’t share but that helps me look at what I need to forgive so I can move onward. We each have different things that show us we are out of sync with the calm, peacefully, pure, safe joy we should be working if we are aware of ourselves. So when we don’t enjoy or want to do the things that make us who we are that is the time when we have to stop, reset our vagus nerve, breath, and forgive – often ourselves for still reacting with that hurt as much as forgiving the person who hurt us.

Forgiveness is NOT something with sharp teeth, which is what I was going to write. Forgiveness is the the true MUST DO that is the only things that is going to keep us in good relationship with others and with ourselves. If I don’t forgive me then I forget who “me” really is.

It isn’t easy forgiving but it is essential but too often we get used to those sticky seeds, to those sharp teeth. Too often we are afraid to brush them off, to release ourselves and others. Fear stops us doing many things but most importantly it stops us being ourselves.

So as we enter into the season of Easter, into Holy Week, whether that is your faith or not, just ponder some of the things that are recorded of what Jesus did – the Ultimate Forgiver.

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forgiveness Lord's Prayer

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a dog sitting at the top of the stairs looking cute waiting to be hugged after he has just trashed the couch and put all the cushions on the floor!

In my last writing group I ran only one lady turned up. Her and I have known each other for a while so we got chatting about more than just writing. Slowly it emerged about how forgiveness, of ourselves for being hurt as much as for others who have hurt us is important.

In fact Jesus says in The Lord’s Prayer

Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who wrong against us

[paraphrased]

So we are asking to be forgiven as much as we are asking to forgive, I think. There will be follow up post to this in May after we have done these phrases with the youth group because we all know these lovely young people seem to get to the heart of things.

But as we chatted I thought more and more about how can we understand forgiveness. So I set the challenge with the lady, which I am also going to share with my writing group mailing list for making Forgiveness some solid, giving it a personae, a personality, making to tangible. I think too often we try to understand abstract concepts but we need to make them whole and real.

For me forgiveness if a warm friend, but not the sort of friend who agrees with everything you say but who challenges you when you tried to get round things. I have a couple of friends who are like that. I’ll get into moan mode and they’ll got “yes I see where you’re coming from but have you looked at it from this side.” Now to me that is forgiveness. It doesn’t say you’re wrong but it says you have to move on.

This picture I saw on Facebook this morning says it all for me. Forgiveness is the challenging friend who says “let it go, you don’t need to carry this. Get off the track”. I did also discover that as well as forgiving I need to put in something more than to make it move from an empty forgive to a positive space. Perhaps I need to explore whether forgiveness walks alone or has a friend?

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forgiveness Lord's Prayer

Letting Go

Reeds round the edge of local Abergele pond blown flat by a storm. Photo taken by Diane Woodrow
Reeds blown over in a storm at my local park. They were all standing up right the following day. Very much a bruised reed he will not break. Photo taken by me July 2021

So to carry on with my thoughts on how I am praying The Lord’s Prayer at the moment.

The reason I’ve picked this picture is that when we judge ourselves and so don’t forgive ourselves, we are like these reeds; knocked over, lying flat, struggling to function. But, if we tune into what I believe Jesus is trying to tell us in The Lord’s Prayer, we will recover, stand up again, and be all we are meant to be.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” we recite. I need to forgive me before I can forgive you. Jesus talks about judging others and being judge, which I think goes with this. And it isn’t God judging us or not forgiving us, but ourselves. I don’t believe I follow a judgemental God but I do believe that I can be a judgemental person.

Here is a trivial for instance of me being judgemental. I used to judge what people were wearing so if I had to go out with the dog when I was still in my pajamas [he won’t pee in the garden so sometimes if he’s bursting he has to be rushed to the small patch of grass at the end of our road] I would be convinced people were looking at me and judging me for being in my pjs. I’m not sure anyone noticed or cared. But it did mean when I went out I was often looking at what people were wearing, but now I’ve stopped looking at what people wear and judging whether it is the “right” thing to be out in, and so this morning when I had to rush the dog out I didn’t think what anyone would think of me.

But also the “forgive myself and forgive others” thing is also that if I can’t forgive myself for screwing up I am not able to forgive others for it. So in my morning post-yoga praying I adapt this line “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” to “help me to forgive myself through today as I screw up, which I know I will, and help me to be kind to others who will also screw up, upset me, hurt my feelings or generally do something I don’t like. Help me to keep short accounts and keep my heart open to knowing when I’ve not forgiven myself and also have allowed someone else to upset me” It is all a bit long winded and I can see what the gospel writers shortened it. But actually for me I see the lines in The Lord’s prayer as almost like journal prompts to lead me to something bigger and deeper.

Also starting the day like this means I do spend my day being able to forgive others quickly because it is already in my head.

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forgiveness God healing heart Jesus maya angelou unconditional love

It is Unconditional

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com

Yesterday I finished “Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” by Maya Angelou. I’d also just done another QEC session which involved forgiving myself for misinterpreting church teachings and working too hard to earn God’s love and acceptance, whilst at the same time teaching and sharing about that self-same unconditional love and acceptance!!! Goes to show how often we can teach and share on things that we know to be truth but haven’t accepted into our hearts!

In the last few pages of the book, Maya goes to see her vocal coach to unload about how awful she feels she has been to her son, and lots of other issues, and he says “God forgives you, that’s a given. But you now need to forgive yourself”. Wow! How often do we browbeat ourselves about not being forgiven when in fact God who’s totally forgiven us but we are not forgiving ourselves? If God really loves us unconditionally, which I do truly believe God does, then like Maya’s vocal coach we need to believe that it is a given that God has forgiven us. As my OEC coach told me, and she isn’t a Christian in the ‘purest sense’, “From what I gather God loves everyone unconditionally, even the murder and rapists, and wants to heal them too, and so will forgive them so they can be healed.” We need to forgive ourselves so we can be healed.

Maya ends with this book with a story about her and her son in Hawaii. He was only about 9 years old and had gone off on his own, leaving her asleep, for a swim. She was really worried about where he was because he hadn’t eaten breakfast in the hotel. When the police finally find him he says he ate breakfast in place down the street. He had told the proprietor of the place where he ate “See that name?” pointing to the sign above the hotel with Maya Angelou’s name in lights, “She’s my mother and she’s a great singer.” It made me think that I don’t often enough say “There’s my God and it will be cover by our relationship”.

I should be able to know that I can go wherever I want and do things knowing that the “payment” is covered by God because I am God’s child and am totally loved and looked after and will always be fed. Surely this is the message of the Cross – Jesus made the payment for us and we don’t need to have too any more! Now that is exciting! But to believe that I needed to forgive myself for all the times I’d not quite got it.

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What we going to do to wake up?

(Apologises if I’ve miss quoted lyrics or missed the point. These are my thoughts and how I heard this)

Last night I watch Kate Tempest at Glastonbury. In fact I watched her the night before p056s313too. I don’t do the “watching music” normally – in fact I don’t often listen to music. In the car maybe but not just to sit down and listen to. I have to be doing something else. But someone from one of the writing groups that I run suggested we watch her. I have not been able to get her out of my head since. Then, as things generally do, I met with a friend for coffee and she was talking about similar things to the things Kate was singing about. Last night when I watched I also took notes of the things that had stood out to me the night before. The title of this blog is one of the lines and it is the line that fits in most with what my friend and I were talking about – “what we going to do to wake up?”

She starts with a knock out song about the present government and really does take down Theresa May using actual words that May has said. And this is where the media stops in their reporting but Kate Tempest does not stop there. She takes things onward. I think that is what made me listen twice. Yes it is great to hear someone speaking out against the mess our world is in but it is even more awesome to hear someone talk about what “WE” can do. Not them but us. I did a lot of journalling around that afterwards.

Her main song tells the story of 7 very different people being awake at 4.18 and I challenge anyone to listen to it and not see bits of themselves and bits of those they love in it but she challenges each of us to look for the “gods” out there; that each person is born to greatness – “Gods rise in the most unassuming and human way“. Each of us has the power to act. What I felt Kate was challenging each one of us to live out was; justice, kate_tempest_-_let_them_eat_chaosrecompense, humility and most importantly to realise that we are connected and to live with unconditional love for each other.

One bit that has stayed with me is when she says to realise that the oppressed and the oppressor are connected. I felt, and feel too that it is reflected in the medias response to her set, that we blame the government, blame “them” when in fact each of us holds others back, holds ourselves back, turns a blind eye to things, when in fact we need to realise that we do get what we either vote for or can’t be bothered to vote for.

I loved how she finished – that there is nothing new, nothing set in stone, we have it all in us and there is peace in face of people, but that things will not change until we all realise that they have to and are all willing to rise up and change things. We need to stop consuming and start looking to each other, encouraging each other, releasing each other, helping each other to dream our dreams.

“What are we going to do wake up?” Before the US elections I read of a prophet (I’ve lost the piece so can’t quote fully) that I remember saying that Trump was in the running because we all needed a “trumpet call to wake up“, and that things were going to come into the light. I believe instead of reacting and fearing we need to ask what caused that boy to want to blow himself and lots of young girls as well after a concert in Manchester, aaeaaqaaaaaaaaesaaaajdc5yty5ytlmltfkyjmtngfjoc1imze4lwq4y2vlzjuyyzhmzgwhat caused those young men to drive a van into people they didn’t know and then go on a killing rampage, what causes the person in the town next to me to want to stab his wife, what causes builders to put cheap inflammable materials into a building and authority figures to turn a blind eye, what causes suicides, murders, the need to buy sweatshop made clothes, to drink, etc etc.

We all need to have that wake up call to find out what makes us happy to moan but do nothing. How much more needs to go on before we all take responsibility?

One of the things I journalled last night was “have I ever spoken to a potential terrorist, rapist, murderer? I don’t know. But maybe I have. Maybe something I have said has awoken a dream in them for something more than destruction. Or maybe because of things I do and say then those thoughts never cross their minds. It is time we all got out forgivenessfearlessness-unconditional-love-tmu702there, stopped blaming them and started seeing how we can LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY. Perhaps we can only do that when we realise we are all connected, all loved and all have something to contribute?