An around about way of forgiving the perpetrator

It’s surprising the things you trip over when you’ve had an epiphany. Last night I had my fifth fourth-year epiphany—and it came about through two words, which God uttered to cause a fresh conviction to course through my psyche.

Two words. I knew exactly what they meant. Tears for being touched by God, even if those two words were not flattering.

This is only indirectly related to the topic of the article, but suddenly something has made more sense.

I shared a question in a devotion with a class of 10-year-olds: “How do you forgive someone who has hurt you and it’s none of your fault?” The talk I was doing was about how hurts can create a hard heart in us. There was a bit of discussion and nobody really knew how to answer it. Then I suggested an answer.

When people are transgressed in a way that they’re not in any way at fault—think in terms of abuse—they’re left with an irreconcilable hurt, especially if the person who perpetrated the hurt denies any damage or wrongdoing.

Hang in there with me. This is a process.

A transgressed person is left with a hurt they cannot reconcile. There is no way they can “forgive” their perpetrator given the initial abuse is denied, which compounds the abuse. The survivor of the abuse is caught in a loop of anger, sadness and guilt. 

What happens without them knowing is their heart gradually turns hard, more out of a self-protective response than anything. We become cynical when we’re trounced by injustice. Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12).

Here is where the good news begins, if we abide by the Christian worldview.

What the victim may begin to see in their own heart is something that may initially anger them—“Look what that abuse did to me!!” But after we’re sick and tired of going around the same old hard-hearted loop, sometimes after years, we might come to the fuller realisation that hard-heartedness is itself a sin that needs to be repented of. Good news!

When we finally see that injustice has calloused our hearts, we sit there in the knowledge, “I have a hard heart… me… I?” It’s an epiphany, for the sin done against us, because it hurt so much, has caused us to enter into a sin. Anger, we know, is no good, and thankfully it has its use-by date. Sitting there in the fuller knowledge that our hard-heartedness is causing its own problems in some of our relationships, we suddenly see the cause. Now it’s not about what they did to me; it’s more about how I’ve become a reflection of that behaviour.

If we’ve still got the heartbeat of Christ throbbing in our chest, we’ll feel uncomfortable to the point of doing something about it. In that moment, of revelation for repentance, we’re not so much shamed for our past as we are keen to clear our name; to make our restitution for the hurts our hard-heartedness has caused.

We’re no longer bothered by what “they did to me,” because all that’s in focus now is our own behaviour, and the hard-heartedness that drives it. We empathise with ourselves for the fact that it was an unreconciled hurt (or a compendium of them) that caused it. By being fixed in blame-mode (though the blame would be justified) does nothing to either address the hurt or soften our heart. Blame just hardens us more!

So, we resolve to do what must be done for the present and future as we depart from living in our past. Suddenly, in making reparation and becoming grateful again, we find sweet relief that we’re no longer dominated by the past. We’ve taken a sojourn from it, and there’s nothing compelling us back to it. We have sufficient distance from our perpetrator and God may show us how, despite their behaviour toward us, they bear the divine image, just as we do. Sure, their behaviour was reprehensible. But we can’t do anything about it.

Then we have a thought one day that our perpetrator was themselves abused, because we know that abuse begets abuse. We catch ourselves having pity for them, and we’re shocked, because it’s a sure sign that compassion is returning to our heart, which confirms something that makes us feel happy. It doesn’t mean we can’t still seek or desire justice. But we’ve got a lot more perspective.

I think this looks a lot like forgiveness.

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash