Forgiveness: The Key to Healing

Forgive me for borrowing words from Don Henley. (Hey! If you borrow words, borrow from someone who's got them to spare, huh?) I only want to borrow just a few of them from the chorus:

I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter | But my will gets weak | And my thoughts seem to scatter | But I think it's about...Forgiveness, forgiveness

Henley's song is about a lost love, or maybe it is about a love that never came together because of neglect or misunderstanding. In either case, it is about loss...and forgiveness.

Through the multitude of social media quotes and memes about self-care, I notice an incessant call for impatience with people who disrespect, disregard, or otherwise abuse your kindness or friendship. Forgiveness is not held in high regard, nor is it found in high demand.

I believe this is to our detriment.

How many whole, wholesome, fulfilling relationships exist today because someone in the relationship chose forgiveness over retribution or retreat?

I was recently reminded of this when someone hurt my feelings. I know that sounds funny: A man in my position and with my level of experience getting his feelings hurt sounds a little sad. Maybe it is. Nonetheless, in the moment, I was fraught with emotion and tempted by retribution. My knee was trying its best to jerk. Were it not for the many times I have sipped the lukewarm soup of knee-jerk regret, I would surely have made matters worse.

Instead, I chose a different path. I chose forgiveness, even if the offender didn't know there was an offense. I chose to wait until I was not angry or hurt to address the situation. In so doing, I found a sweet moment of understanding and restoration, which I much prefer to the devastation of drawn battle lines. As a man who has needed well more than his share of forgiveness, I have found, while a burden, forgiveness is the kind of weight that strengthens and restores, rather than crushing.

Forgiveness is hard

Forgiveness is hard because it does not cancel the debt; it absorbs it.

Think of it in financial terms. If someone owes you a financial debt and you choose to forgive it, you are saying that you are willing to absorb a loss, to be out the money. The first time I experienced this was as a very young husband and father when my in-laws loaned me money to get through a rough patch. In time, the loan became a gift.

"I don't need the money back. I don't want it back," my father-in-law insisted. "Just take care of my baby girl and your baby girl. Call it an investment."

Now my in-laws, who stood ready to rescue any time things went south in those early days when I was a constant passenger (or behind the wheel) on the Struggle Bus, are well into their 80s. Just Saturday past, after we attended the funeral of one of their lifelong friends and the mother of their other son-in-law, I took them to lunch at one of their favorites, El Fenix. I cannot tell you what joy it gives me to pick up the tab these days. It is a little nod to that investment, that debt they forgave again and again.

So much of the Internet advice today is devoid of forgiveness. It is all about the "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" vibe. I have seen 2025 Memes that declare something like, "This year, I am going to interact with the people who interact with me first." It is all butthurt, me-first BS that only leads to more isolation, disappointment, and disillusion. Such thinking never insulates a person from hurt; it only isolates and that adds to the hurt.

Forgiveness is hard but it is worth it. More than the forgiven, it liberates the forgiver. The burden of bitterness is lifted.

Forgiveness is key

Any relationship that lasts any amount of time will require forgiveness to survive. Humans are frail and imperfect creatures. We disappoint each other. We often do what we wish we hadn't or don't do what we wish we had.

Even the Apostle Paul knew the struggle was real. He wrote in Romans 7:19, "I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway." (New Living Translation)

My wife and I have been married 44 years and counting and we are each only 63.

Yeah. We married young and have remained together for more than four decades. I am working on an article for my other writing space, The JourneyMan's Journal, which I will title The Ten Commandments for Lovers, to highlight the things I believe are essential to a successful intimate relationship.

I can tell you one thing: If she was not a world-class forgiver of debts, we would have never made it. That has been absolutely key to our longevity and togetherness.

Forgiveness is a key ring

Actually, I would like the reader to imagine forgiveness as a key ring rather than a key and imagine that on this ring are the keys essential to unlocking the doors leading to the inner sanctum, the holy place of healing. Leave one key off the ring and entry will be impossible.

Here are five keys to healing a relationship through forgiveness:

1. The key of selflessness. A selfish love is only love for self. If you say, "I love you because you do this or that for me," then you are saying, "I love me and you love me and that's cool." Love is not a feeling but it evokes the greatest of emotions. Love is not an action but an inactive love is ineffectual. Love is not a thought, but it is hard to think of anything else when love is in the air. Give...give...give. Loving is giving. "For God so loved the world that he GAVE His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16).
2. The key of sacrifice. To forgive, one must sacrifice one's own pride, which has been inexorably hurt by the misdeed or thoughtlessness of the one forgiven. Love says, "I will sacrifice my comfort for our cause."
3. The key of solidarity. It is important to forgive. It is also vital to respond positively to forgiveness by changing one's course or habit. An intimate relationship is not 50/50; it is 100/100. You are one entity made up of two personages. Each person has an identity but together they have a unique identity that takes on its own life. What is good for one, is good for both...or it isn't good at all. Let's also extend this to other relationships of importance. If you only value relationships from which you stand to gain, 1) you are a horrible person, and 2) you will never know the sheer beauty of loving someone for their sake and not yours. I don't need to see how you treat the one who writes your paycheck or the key people in your success path. I need to see how you treat the ones who can do nothing to further your cause.
4. The key of "shut up and move on." Forgiveness is not a hammer. It is not a tool to work on your partner - or your friend - with. It is not something be dredged up in every argument. If it is dredged up, it is not forgiven. The debt remains. It is simply deferred and collected in a more sinister and destructive manner, with interest, over and over and over again.
5. The key of safety. If there was ever a circle of safety, then it must exist between lovers and intimate friends. Do you have someone whom you utterly trust with your darkest secrets and thoughts? Do you have someone who can take the ashes of the things you foolishly burned to smithereens and blow them away with the breath of kindness? Are you that someone for anyone?

Forgiveness cleans up the spills on Aisle F

It is a lovely thing to sing lyrics like, "I think I loved you before I met you. I think I dreamed you into life..."

But what about after the shine wore off that relationship? What about when they did you wrong or you felt they had? What about when you had to navigate the choppy waters of imperfection because the one you loved before you met, the one you dreamed to life had feet of clay and was prone to falter and fail?

A story of forgiveness

This young man, the son of a successful merchant, demanded his inheritance from his father. He was going to strike out on his own. His father's ideas were archaic. His morals were too confining. So, off he went. He went willy-nilly, spending money on people he thought were friends and on things he thought would bring lasting pleasure. Soon, he was broke, destitute, and alone. He was so hungry that he envied the slop the farmers fed their hogs. So, he said to himself that he would go home with his tail between his legs. He would profusely apologize to his dad. He would tell his father that he did not deserve to be treated like a son and he would beg for a job, any job, just to be back in the comfort and safety of his father's home.

The father, meanwhile, spent every day watching, waiting, praying for his son's return. One day, he saw this frail figure in the distance. He recognized him as his wayward son. He ran to the boy, engulfed him in his arms, and this is what he said...

"Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found." So the party began. (Gospel of Luke 15:22)

The real party is not the one that begins with all the flowery words of young love or the things you think about that new friend you imagine to be flawless. The real party begins when you discover you are each flawed and you go to dinner together anyway.

Party on!