How To Forgive When It Seems Impossible

I recently encountered someone who gravely, deliberately, and quite rudely offended me. It was a serious situation and it had a huge affect on me. In the days that followed the event, I was able to calm down and remember a life lesson I had to learn the hard way years before; to pray for my offender and ask God to give me the grace to forgive with sincerity.

My intention here is not to publicly pat myself on the back for this because, truth be known, forgiving others has never been my strong point. I only want to offer some hope to anyone who is struggling with the idea of having to forgive his or her ex-spouse because, no matter how insane the idea of forgiveness might seem, it is possible and is a step that will help you achieve peace and healing.

Forgiveness has been an incredible struggle for me from the get-go and my reluctance to forgive in the past has caused me many problems, likely because I am such a prideful person. This struggle was at it's worst when my former husband very deliberately and dishonorably ended our marriage back in 1993. At that time, I couldn't go anywhere near the thought of forgiving him. After what he had done, it was impossible.

Amazing Grace

The difference between me back in 1993 and me today is that the recent offense reveals the genesis of my ability to forgive, which could only have come through God's grace. Somewhere along the line after my divorce I was able to get to the point where I was willing to at least think about the possibility of forgiving my ex-spouse. And I believe that tiny, tiny crack in the door was all God needed to start transforming my heart with his grace. I would be angry with my ex-spouse for causing me to suffer so much, God infused my heart with grace, and I took a minute step forward through trying to forgive him. As I examined each of my reasons to be righteously angry and resentful, God would supply the grace to forgive and I took another minute step forward. It became a process in which a habit was formed and over time, each step got slightly bigger and slightly easier to achieve.

Often times people cling to their anger and refuse to forgive because they believe they are losing if they do so. They feel the offender is "off the hook" or somehow bears no responsibility for their offense, but nothing could be further from the truth. A lack of forgiveness has a direct, negative impact on your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Taking that unbelievably difficult first step in forgiveness can be very difficult, but if you are indeed battling the idea of forgiving your ex-spouse, I invite you to lay down your arms and consider some important points regarding forgiveness:

1.    It's hard to call ourselves Christians if we are unwilling to forgive others.

We want to be good people, we want to go to heaven, but if we are keeping the precepts of the Church yet are unwilling to forgive, it's a contradiction.

In his recent Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis told the audience:

“It's not exterior things which make us holy or not holy, but it's the heart that expresses our intentions, our choices and the desire to do everything out of love for God... External attitudes are the consequence of what we have decided in the heart, not the contrary: with external attitudes, if the heart doesn't change, we aren't true Christians.”

2.    When you forgive, you receive "the peace that passes all understanding (Phillipians 4:7)."

God does not want your life to be hell on earth because of your divorce, he wants to show you how to find peace and joy amid all the trials of life. He wants to show you how his love transforms any and all situations if you grant him access to your heart. If we don't open our hearts to the possibility of forgiveness, we are blocking his ability to bring good things out of our terrible circumstances.

One of the greatest examples of forgiveness in unforgivable circumstances was given to us by Immaculee Ilibigiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide back in the early 1990s. During that time, the Hutu tribe violently slaughtered nearly a million members of the Tutsi tribe, including her parents and two of her brothers. She escaped death by hiding in a bathroom with eight other women for 91 days. In her book, Left To Tell, she describes the day she met the Hutu soldier who had slaughtered her family members and in this seemingly unforgivable situation her response was not retaliation. She chose to publicly and sincerely forgive him.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of her book and read it, it is an incredible story. I also encourage you to think about the possibility of forgiving your ex-spouse some day down the road. But most of all, remember that God's grace is what will make that forgiveness happen, and with it, will come "the peace that passes all understanding."