“In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief.”
― Emily Giffin, Heart of the Matter
The dimensions of forgiveness? 70 times 7. When the Lord wants to show you something it is amazing the memories He can bring to the surface. I was in grade school, but I don't remember which teacher it was who said, "Whenever you see the multiplication sign you can insert the word "by"." This makes sense when forgiving 70 by 7. This makes the whole dimension theory appear to be more than a theory. I want to know more about these levels of forgiveness.
I am in the word every day reading and learning with a hunger for knowledge that I haven't had in a couple years. Then I heard a sermon on chasing the experiences of those in the bible when we can have our own experience. I haven't been experiencing Him like I was. In fact, I have been somewhat avoiding Him. After the road trip with friends brought a lot of junk to the surface I was more hungry for personal experience and more healing. Where does all this hurt come from and why can't I put it behind me. I gave up running.
Me: Jesus, why am I unwilling to spend the time I used to spend with you? I used to get on my knees for hours and You showed me all these things about me and about You and now our conversations are more mechanical.
Jesus: You have come to the end of your intimacy.
Me: WHAT? This is it? This is the great intimacy that everybody talks about? Well that's a let down.
Jesus: You have come to the end of what you know. There is deeper intimacy, but you will have to allow Me to take you there.
As fear grips my throat, I realize a change of subject is in order. Me: Okay, but why can't I forgive "what's his name"? I still get so angry.
Jesus: You have forgiven, you know his heart, you see what the enemy is doing in his life, but nobody taught you to grieve.
Me: Grieve? What do you mean grieve?
Jesus: Grieve the loss of the friendship. Grieve the person you thought you knew and accept he does not exist. If you allow Me to walk you through this grief, the intimacy with Me will grow.
Me: Goodnight
Jesus: I will be right here
Me: Goodnight.
Who wants to grieve? I spend the day reading about forgiveness. I study but everything seems to be a rabbit trail. I replay our conversation over and over and it makes a little more sense, but seriously? Who wants to grieve?
That afternoon in a conversation with one of the people I live with, I complain about not getting anything done.
B: You were in scripture all day. That is doing something.
Me: God said if He gives me a real job like I asked, He would lose me. He said work is another escape, addiction, way of avoiding life.
B: Look at all He has shown you. You aren't wasting time. This is good stuff.
As we sit at the table with the Bible and the Concordance and begin our almost daily digging into scripture, I tell him about a woman I prayed for the night before. Her daughter was killed in a car accident and she could not forgive the driver of the car. When she spoke the words, "I forgive" she broke. It was so good to see her let loose of some of that anger.
B: Wow, anger keeps the pain away. It keeps us from grieving.
Me: What? Are you kidding?
We both realize how this applies to me.
B: I'm sorry.
Me: Don't be. That makes so much sense. That is what I am doing, I am stuck in the anger so I don't have to grieve.
There we sat, our eyes filled with tears.
Me: This is going to suck
B: No it's not.
One of the levels, a very important level to forgiveness is grief. Grief has 5 to 7 levels of it's own. The dimensions theory is further proven. The first stage of grief is denial and the second is anger. What I thought was unforgiveness, is really the anger that comes in grief. Any situation where forgiveness is called for there is grief for what was lost. It could be trust, it could be a friendship, it could be a life.
Fear of grieving is huge. Why is it that I can forgive somebody who sexually abused me over and over, but I can't seem to walk through this? When Jesus takes me back to the memory of grieving for what was lost through the abuse, I remember being wrapped in a blanket for two days, barely able to move. The tears kept coming, when I thought there couldn't possibly be any left. I grieved my childhood, my innocence and all the parts of my life I missed out on because of the abuse. After that, this should be easy? Right? No. It's not. Those people, even though I knew them and they were significant in my life before the abuse, (most of them anyway) this person is different. Why?
I did not trust him because of his position in the world or in my life. I trusted him because I chose to. I battled hard for that trust. I thought he was battling with me. There were many times I thought he would turn his back and he had every right to, but he didn't. He got up in the night when God woke him to pray for me. He said he would protect me. What exactly am I grieving?
The Lord showed me recently that when he rejected me, it took me back to the moment my dad left. I was eleven years old and angry. When this person turned to walk away, there was an eleven year old's anger that came out of me. I was not almost fifty with the maturity of someone that age. I was that eleven year old sitting in that dark basement realizing that this man was not who I thought he was and I only had the maturity level of that eleven year old in the area of dealing with the hurt. I hurled every word I could come up with to hurt him back, just like I did with Dad almost forty years ago. The biggest difference was with Dad, I grabbed his leg and begged him not to go. When I did let go, I promised myself I would never again beg anyone not to leave me. I stuck to my promise. In fact, I screamed everything I could to make sure he never came back.
While I was with my friends on our road trip, I had a vision. There was this huge carrot in the ground and God said, "Let's pull this out. It is a root." I pulled, but the green just broke off the top. I saw his hand go right into the dirt around that carrot and grab a hold. He said, "Are you ready? I am going to pull this out." I said, "No. Leave it. Cover it up with dirt. Nobody will know it's there." He and I know it's there and it has to come out. Why a carrot? Carrots are good for the eyesight? Things will look different?
Here we sit. Grief huh? You going to stand there with Your hand on that carrot all day, God? I see Him smile. Suddenly, I think of a bad tooth. The constant pain. It needs to go. Tylenol or pull it? Keep the ache or pull it out by the root? This may seem a little crazy, because as bad as I know it is going to hurt, I also know the relief will be HUGE. His hand grips the carrot a little tighter and I rest my hand on His arm like I do at the dentist so that if I panic I can signal Him to stop. Ready? He is ready. Am I ready? Believe it or not, no. I don't want to do this. I'm going to go find something else to do. I could lie, but let's face it. I am avoiding for now. Maybe tomorrow.
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
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