Matthew 6:15 [Full Chapter] but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Years ago, I had a falling out with a friend. Not just a casual friend but a close, speak to almost everyday, love them like family, friend. It was more like they fell out and I was left wondering what had happened. They made some choices to change their life and I was one of the casualties. I didn’t want to be part of their drama but I wanted to keep my friendship, so it stung. This was one person I thought I would be friends with my entire life. The one friend I truly trusted. I thought they would get past the crisis of their own making and we would be friends again. Of course we would be friends, they were my family. That’s not at all what happened. Not only did we not speak again but I found myself kind of hating this person. I had stuck up for them, remained loyal to them and had been their biggest defender. Then they became involved with some people who didn’t want them to have other close friends and poof, that was that. What a turd. I tried for a long time to convince myself that the friendship had just run it’s course, better if we didn’t speak, blah, blah, blah, but the truth is, you can’t choose someone’s ugly.

I’d moved on until recently when this person’s name was brought up on several different occasions by different people assuming we were still friends. Every time I heard their name, it was a scratchy tag on my neck. A wool sweater in July. So I did what all sweet Christians do and prayed for them halfheartedly. Then their name was brought up again and I prayed the least amount of words I could get away with to form a legible sentence. When they got brought up the third time, I complained about them, prayed for them and actually asked God if He could have someone else pray for them. Hey man, sanctification is a process. I don’t want to think about them. It wasn’t until I was having a conversation about forgiveness last night that I realized what God had been trying to show me all along, I don’t forgive them. They hurt me. I loved this person like family. There was no big fight, no smack-down in the 7-11 parking lot, no exchange of words, it just was a friendship and then it wasn’t. I was angry that they got to make the decision for both of us. I didn’t know until last night that I needed to just forgive them. Forgiveness is a big gun. You don’t just whip it out and point it at someone. Forgiveness is God’s territory. I always think that saying I need to forgive someone is ridiculous considering where I’ve been. So true forgiveness is just not something I can wrap my head around. The word forgiveness has been tossed around so much in Christianity, beaten and battered until it’s hard to recognize and even harder to implement. What does it really mean? Is it the saying my dad always used to quote?

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Is that forgiveness? Letting go of anger? This isn’t a balloon launch to commemorate a special day. I can’t stuff my hurt into a paper skin, light a match and watch it float away. People say the funniest things. Let go and let God. Well, that would be great if I wasn’t so busy being annoyed trying to figure out how to do that. I don’t want to be a hypocrite wanting Jesus to forgive me entirely but only want to go halfway when forgiving someone else. The price of forgiveness in this situation? I can no longer be a victim to this circumstance. Forgiving them means I can no longer be the injured party. To give up my right to tell people who ask that the fault is not my own or at least imply that it wasn’t. I don’t want to be the villain in this story. I want them to be. Let’s just be honest. When someone does you wrong, don’t you want people to know? To at least let people know it wasn’t your fault? I do. I don’t want people thinking I’m responsible for someone else’s train wreck. I wanted sympathy for this lost friendship and I got it, but it never brought my friend back.

Now I can look back and see that I’m glad this friendship has ended. I didn’t want to go where they went, still don’t. Their rabbit hole was not something God wanted me to fall into. But I do forgive them for rejecting me. For allowing others to dictate to them who they should and should not be friends with. I forgive them for not wanting to be my family anymore. If I did them an unknown wrong, I hope they forgive me too. I know in time I will mean that 100% and not just 99%. I’ve been holding onto that 1%, hiding it in a drawer just in case I need it. If I run into someone else that asks me about my                   not-friend I might miss it if I gave it up. Then again, Jesus is too good to me to withhold even that 1% from Him or from others. Giving up my right to be right means I don’t get to fly the victim flag anymore or wear it like a shawl or break it out on special occasion like a heirloom tablecloth. I think I’ll take a page out of my not-friend’s play book. One day there was no forgiveness and the next there was.

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