As of the past many months, the idea of forgievness has been relentlessly pressed upon my heart, and not only because wrong has been ritualistically done without a single regret. Coincidentally, subsequent to GraceCon, church, and lots of Tumblr posts, we watched Tuesdays with Morrie in health.
A couple aphorisms from Morrie:
We fear aging, out the many fears of death, failure, and sickness, because we worship youth, yet if we find a greater purpose in life, there should be no fear in losing time that we have rightfully owned and now must relinquish.
You must love or die.
The tension of opposites - explained poorly, but so very beautiful
Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
"Forgive everyone, everything. Many do not have the chance like I do. I will die in peace, surrounded by people I love and who love me. We learn as much from people who hurt us as we do from people who love us."
Death ends a life, not a relationship
But the forgiveness. In my experience, and in my leisurely viewing of dramatic but reflective episodes of America's Next Top Model and Glee, people wrong each other all the time. The beautiful gay couple is thrown in the trash, rock-slushied, and crowned prom queens. Raging hot females are pitted against each other because of their own arrogance and perceived shallow character flaws. Kelly Cutrone shows no human empathy in her facade of the adamantly self-demanding respect. Puckerman banged Quinn and gave her a baby, and Finn kissed Mr. Schuester's fiance. People are full of bad decisions, and as far as I know, only the men in these shows have been capable of some perceptible genuince forgiveness. Are all women ego-centric, scrabbling desperaux of pride? They say men struggle with pride, but I can without hesitation attest to my gender's faltering insecurity.
I have rarely seriously judged other people's darknesses. I used to complain about white people, but since being broken by the tearing of my fragile innards, insensitive insults, mocking stabs, and superiority complexes became only directions to the bearer's heart. I have loved to read and listen to the cries and struggles of sin and regret, and still each day, I can feel myself opening more to true empathy. I hate attention whoring, rash emotional decisions, and butt-kissing small talk, yet I so feel the motive behind each act. I have been in such a dungeon before. If I have every been wronged, I have understood and forgiven with little hesitation. I love to understand more than I love to hold a grudge. I would love to love more.
As can probably be deduced from the past four months of posts, however, there have been repeated spouts of the said act of forgiveness. Since understanding the wretchedness of cyclical binging and starvation, I have seen the cataclysmic wreck of sin into which Satan has so tempted mankind. Out of obligation not to condemn that which I see as an embodiment of the broken heart, just know that I don't want to focus on the criminality of the said bittersweet conflict, sweet being an selective, sunny way to describe the enjoyment of such gratification.
I am sick to be so cheated with so little empathetic retrospection. Forgiveness is some form of letting go of resentment and bitterness, and this I can surely do. Detachment has never been too difficult after intimately knowing my self-inflicted pains. Help me to do the impossible, is Matthew West's lyrics, and I know that God is on my side, our side. The impossible can be done. Forgive, for we have been forgiven.
Along the lines of loving the unlovable, still there is trembling pain in the forgiveness. Consider our God, who weeps for how we wrong him day by day and how He still forgives us. While we are forgiven for our sins, some consequences can't be escaped; though we may not be forsaken and banished to Hell's inferno, we are disciplined by the law which God has dictated for us. My body is an engravement of my suffering. Sin must be cut away, yet for our lives, we will bear it, not understanding, but fighting.
Still in this case, I believe that the indulgence of a friendship stained grossly with immorality is wrong. There is a point when the presence of sin necessitates separation, especially in the individual, spiritual growth of partakers in any type of relationship. I'm unconvinced of cleanliness in the presence of such alleged comaraderie and dependency. The immobility of the value of sacred creation is not my problem, even though I abhor the glorification of experimental sex. My problem is this, that what is currently in place is the settlement of cowards. I am so ashamed.
.
