"Even though it's really hard, when someone is mean {when they call you names, steal your friends, don't express gratitude for your efforts, stop talking to you, gossip about you, kick you on the playground, decide someone else is more important, pretend you are invisible, spread rumors about you, don't apologize, etc.} we need to try our best to be nice."
I looked at my favorite little five year old in the rear-view mirror after I picked her up from swim lessons last week. She frowned and looked out the window.
"But uh-LYSSSSA," she whined. "He called me a stupid-head. So I smacked him." The teacher had gently informed me at pickup that there had been an "incident" in the pool that day. Thank you for telling me, I nodded. I'll make sure we talk about it.
And we did.
But as I formed the words in the car I thought about them as I spoke them. How can I tell this sweet little one how to act when I have deep hurts in my own heart and sometimes all I want to do is smack someone in line? And when someone hurts us deeply (dare I admit it?), sometimes it is all I have in me not to be cruel in return.
So I tell her. Even when someone is hurtful, over and over and OVER again. Even when they betray you. Even when they call you names. Even then we still must love.
I tasted the bitterness as it came off my tongue. Because large parts of my heart struggle to believe my own words.
Because seriously, how many chances does someone get?
How many chances did Peter get? I recall Peter asking Jesus something similar. Almost like a kindergartener (or a 21-year-old college student) he was. How many times, Jesus? How many times do I forgive? Surely not more than I have days in the week?
And then Jesus said, "Hey, Peter? Times whatever number you have in your head by infinity, and then you'll have your answer."
How many times do we allow someone to hurt our feelings, betray us in the most intimate of ways, or call us a stupid-head during swim lessons without going all wild woman crazy on them and returning the hurt?
Infinity times infinity.
It's a drastic type of forgiveness. It's a radical, weird thing that doesn't feel good all the time. It feels weak and subservient. It feels like I'm losing my pride, that I'm losing my footing and confidence. It's so much stronger to be cruel in return, right? This kind of infinity-times-infinity forgiveness doesn't make any kind of real sense.
It's the kind of forgiveness that goes way beyond stupid-head.
It dips into the arena of forgiving the lie-spreaders, our abusers, the ones who murder and steal and take things in life that never belonged to them. And sometimes? It's forgiveness over and over and over again. But as I think about it and I think about Peter, I don't think Jesus asked anything less.
It's the kind of gracious forgiveness that seems NUTS to those who don't know Jesus. Like jumping in a freezing pool or walking on a tight-rope over the grand canyon. Once you're in, you're all in. There's no going back.
And then once we've forgiven today {because forgiving today is a bit easier than trying to forgive for all eternity}, we wake up tomorrow and we do it again. Whenever the sting rises, we consciously choose to jump full feet into radical forgiveness. Infinity times infinity, if it comes to that.
And sometimes, that forgiveness will be a quiet whisper in the still of the night. When the anxiety and the hurt has woken us up once again at 2:17 with no hope of falling back asleep. It's the whisper, the name of the betrayer and a "Jesus, please help" added to the end. Speaking the small, weak prayer is one of the strongest things we can do. It's a huge step of grace. A huge surrender of control.
The people that wound us? They only hold as much power over us as we allow.
Taking those excruciatingly hard, tiny steps toward drastic forgiveness is the ONLY way I can teach the little ones in my life that even if he calls her bad names forever we still have the opportunity to practice mercy.
Because Jesus asked us to.
And because anything less keeps us in chains to the person who has done the wounding.
Jesus, help me. Wash over me and wash over them with your infinity-times-infinity quality of grace and radical forgiveness.
And please help sweet little love to know she is not, and never will be, a stupid-head.
Love,
Lyss
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