“Acts 9.10-19 reminds me of two things. First of all, God’s voice to Ananius calls him to reach out to a previous persecutor — something only possible through choosing forgiveness. It reminds me of how we are to be a reconciliation people, working to put aside bitterness, resentment of the pasts. “There is no future without forgiveness”, as Desmond Tutu has said. Who in your life do you harbor bitterness with? How can you begin to set yourself free through forgiveness? Also God says that Paul’s salvation from the path he is on, though yes it saves him, calls him to a purpose that embraces suffering. So often we hear (and even preach) that salvation means deliverance from suffering. Here God admits that the path of salvation includes you willingly embracing certain suffering. Salvation does not deliver us from the pains of this world, from disability and poverty, but instead transforms our path so our suffering can become paths of healing for ourselves and for this broken world.”
– Micah Royal
43 You have been taught to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.44 But I tell you this: love your enemies. Pray for those who torment you and persecute you— 45 in so doing, you become children of your Father in heaven. He, after all, loves each of us—good and evil, kind and cruel. He causes the sun to rise and shine on evil and good alike. He causes the rain to water the fields of the righteous and the fields of the sinner. 46 It is easy to love those who love you—even a tax collector can love those who love him. 47 And it is easy to greet your friends—even outsiders do that! 48 But you are called to something higher: “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” – Matthew 5: 43-48 (The Voice)
Father’s Day passed recently, and for me it was a day of reflection. Earlier in the week I had come across both of the passages above. Each resonated with me, and I found myself recalling them repeatedly in my mind over the next few days. As Father’s Day arrived I of course was thinking about the many fathers in my life.
I thought about my own father, who lives nearby and I have the benefit of being able to see and speak to regularly. My children have the benefit of knowing a loving grandfather who has allowed the warm and tender side of himself be more apparent as he has aged. I am so thankful for him in our lives.
I thought about my husband, J, and what a wonderful husband, father, and now grandfather he is. I am so thankful to have him in my life and my children’s lives. As well I remembered my father-in-law who passed away a few months ago, and how it was a shame that we didn’t make the time to get to know each other better when we had the chance. He too was a kind and gentle man, and we will miss him.
I thought about my step-son, now a young father himself, learning and maturing and trying to be the best father he can be. I am proud of him for taking steps respond to life’s challenges in a mature and loving way. I know that given the chance he will be a loving influence in his son’s life.
I thought about all the fathers who are separated from their children on Father’s Day – by choice or not – and especially those separated from their children because of parental alienation. Having just gone through a Mother’s Day without my daughter, I empathize with them and wished them peace at a difficult time.
Then I thought about my daughter’s father. The man who had made my life hell for years, and who had essentially stolen my daughter from me. The man who has made my blood boil and my temper flare like no one else ever could. But this time I could think about him without hatred or anger.
This time I found myself silently wishing him a Happy Fathers Day too. After all, he is the father of my daughter, and without him my amazing, bright, talented, kind and beautiful daughter wouldn’t be with us. I know that he loves her and she has been shaped into the person she is partly by his influence. And for all the years we were together and all the experiences we went through together, I realized that I cannot truly know him. Only he and God know what is in his heart, and God loves him just as much as me.
I don’t agree with the terrible things my ex husband has done to our child and to me over the years, but I try to understand where they are coming from. It saddens me that there seems to be so much fear and pain in his life that he feels the need to behave the way he does. I would love nothing more than for him to find what it is that he needs to move into a place of genuine peace and love, so that his life, and consequently my daughter’s life, can be happier and more fulfilled. I also realize that dream is something I cannot control myself, and all I can do is hope and pray that some day that will come about for him, in whatever way he needs it to. Despite all my efforts over the years to change what was happening, all I can really do is affect my own part of the equation, and hold onto hope for change.
Over the past year I have been working on understanding forgiveness and compassion, specifically towards my daughter’s father. In my life I’ve always found it fairly easy to forgive a friend or loved one, but forgiving someone who has caused so much pain and damage to me and my child, now that’s something different. And truly loving my enemy and having compassion for him was completely foreign to me. There was a time when I didn’t think I would ever be able to get there.
Early on in this quest to get beyond the pain of alienation I quickly realized that I didn’t really have a good grasp of what true forgiveness or compassion was. Through reading and reflection I began to comprehend that forgiveness and compassion does not mean condoning the behaviour. And forgiving my ex for the abuse and alienation is not for his benefit, it is for mine. It is allowing myself to put aside the bitterness and move forward with my life. It has given me the peace I need to continue through my life without anger and hatred. That doesn’t come easily. From the point of declaring forgiveness to finally finding peace is not a linear path. There are ups and downs, and unexpected twists and turns. As Micah Royal tells us, starting a journey of freeing ourselves is being willing to embrace certain suffering in order to get there.
I have accepted the suffering of not having contact with my daughter in order to release myself from the bitterness and resentment towards her father. By doing so I have been able to forgive and find compassion and peace. By examining my own beliefs and actions, and shedding what was being detrimental rather than helpful has created a new version of me, and one that is much happier and confident and satisfied with my being, despite what I have been through.
Forgiveness has transformed my path. I am taking a step closer to finding the divinity within me, and becoming the spiritual being I am meant to be.
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