Forgiveness is a process
I had to stop praying for forgiveness to actually forgive like Jesus did
From telling people to forgive seventy-seven times (Matt 18:21-22) to forgiving the perpetrators while on the cross (Luke 23:34), Jesus made it clear that forgiveness was a vital part of his ministry. So when I was younger and was a faithful, spirited, Jesus-loving prayer warrior, I couldn’t understand why praying to forgive people never worked.
I remember being in middle school, pleading with God to help the pain go away after people had hurt me. Whether I needed to forgive a toxic coach, an unreliable friend, or a teacher who had made a hurtful comment—somehow the prayers of forgiveness did not take away my hot, dysregulated emotional response. After the prayer I would inevitably think back to the person or the incident and the wound would still sting. I’d find myself defensively snapping out bitter jabs about the person, or else burying myself in criticism, assuming I had done something wrong to deserve the pain. So I would pray again to forgive. And while I fervently returned to these prayers time and again, I didn’t actually know how to embody forgiveness. Each time after I prayed, the pain would return to my body.
My “failed” attempts to forgive like Jesus didn’t change until I was introduced to forgiveness as a process. In a psychology course in college, we learned about the neuroscience of virtues. Apparently virtues—including forgiveness—are skills to be developed and practiced over time. So there it was, the answer to my prayers: forgiveness is a process that takes time and good practice. Forgiveness is not forgetting the past nor pretending incidents weren’t hurtful. Forgiveness is not excusing behaviors, nor is it avoiding conflict or grief. Forgiveness is not even reconciliation nor making amends with the person who wronged us (though reconciliation can often be intertwined with the forgiveness process).
Forgiveness is instead like a closed fist loosening over time. The process of forgiveness requires us to address the hurt and grieve the loss of the relationship. Frederic Luskin describes forgiveness as the “moment-to-moment experience of peace and understanding that occurs when an injured party’s suffering is reduced as they transform their grievance against an offending party.” The process of forgiveness is really the process of our past pains slowly alleviating, stinging less because we let go of negative emotions and develop a different perspective on the offender.
So, how do we forgive?
There are endless theories and ways of describing the process of forgiveness. After all, it is a practice humans have been doing for millennia! I won’t come close to capturing all the brilliant approaches to forgiveness, but I will share 4 steps of forgiveness (adapted from Enright and his colleagues in 1991) that I’ve found to be helpful in my own life.
First, we must honestly uncover the pain, anger, and loss within ourselves. Before skipping to understanding, we really have to be honest with ourselves about the pieces of wrongdoing (by a person or institution) that have made a mark on us. We have to grieve.
Then, we need to make a decision to forgive. We have to come to terms with what it would mean for us to actually forgive. What are we letting go of?
Next (and this is the hardest step for me), we have to try to understand the person who hurt us. Leaving behind a dualistic view that considers a person to be all good or all bad, we adopt a perspective that humanizes the other person. As a human being, they are capable of both goodness and love and beauty, and also badness and cruelty and selfishness. This requires us to empathetically see from their point of view and have compassion for them. This crucial step helps us take things less personally and see how we are each humans finding our way.
Lastly, we release the anger and resentment. Now that we have fostered more empathy for the other person, we follow through on our forgiveness decision by letting go of the hot emotions. In this final stage we also might seek out support and begin to make meaning of the situation. We see how we, like others, cause harm and recognize our own need for forgiveness as well.
As I have worked through these steps of forgiveness (many times), I have found that the afflictions of the past do become less personal. My pain, while still there, has become less painful. I have more empathy for others and compassion for us all. I wonder what Jesus’ process of forgiveness was? Who knows, but what we do know is that he cared a lot about forgiving and worked hard to do it. May we continue to practice this ancient art of forgiveness, like Jesus did.
