Oftentimes, we choose to forgive people that hurt us before we actually “feel” like forgiving them. Because of that, it can be so hard to tell if you’ve completely forgiven someone until you have to interact with them. The way your heart, mind, and body instantly respond is usually a good indication of where you are in the forgiveness process.

Unfortunately, the road to forgiveness is paved with pain, grief, and uncertainty. As you walk along it, you notice the anger towards the particular situation that put you on that path has subsided, so you think you might be finally over it. That is until you see the person and realize that all you really want to do is turn and head in the opposite direction.

When I started writing this I had a specific person in mind that I am currently working on forgiving, but Jesus evidently had other plans. As I wrote about wanting to turn and head in the opposite direction, Jesus reminded me of something I did not that long ago that completely crushed my heart into a million little pieces.

I had gone out of town and was driving around with someone I love. We had decided to go take some pictures. When we got to a certain person’s house, we debated on getting down to say hi, but we were really pressed for time so we settled on taking the picture we wanted and then leaving. Well, after we took the picture, we saw the person come outside. They didn’t see us. Now normally, I would have said we should go get a hug and say hi, but on this day, for some reason that I was not aware of at the moment, I told my loved one to hurry up and leave before they saw us.

We laughed about it at first, but the realization of what I had just done slowly began to don on me and I felt ashamed of myself. I had come so close in proximity to this person then went out of my way to avoid them. I couldn’t figure out at the time why that was my immediate reaction, but sitting here talking about forgiveness is suddenly making a couple of things crystal clear.

The first is that some roads of forgiveness are a lot longer than others. This person that I chose to avoid in that moment is someone that I feel like I have been trying to forgive for years. It’s been like one big, vicious cycle. I get mad about something, process it with Jesus, find something positive about them that I love, forgive, then move on. Until something else happens and I feel like maybe I didn’t really forgive them before. It’s quite exhausting, for me and the relationship. Although, I doubt the other person even realizes the pain they cause. But that’s a story for a different blog.

The second thing that became clearer is that the most recent happening that caused me pain had more than one purpose. I talked about the lesson I learned in my last post. It was about how people in my present life were reminders of people from my past and how I needed to face things these people represented in order to get past them. Well, I’m now realizing that the person whose words hurt me a couple of weeks ago seems to be walking down a similar path as the person I’ve been trying to forgive for years. They say or do something that causes me pain, I go into an emotional tailspin, process the emotions, then decide to forgive them. Then it seems to happen all over again.

In both of these situations, I have to choose to forgive them. Not just because I care about them, but also because I need God’s forgiveness just as much, if not more. I can’t expect Jesus to forgive me for being rotten if I’m not willing to forgive two people who have hurt me and don’t even realize it enough to apologize.

In both of these relationships, I’m in this season of wanting to forgive them, but not really wanting to be around them yet. It’s like I’m stuck in this awkward pothole of joyful avoidance. A pothole that’s deep enough to take work to get out of, but not so deep that I can’t see the road ahead. I’m not mad at them, but I’m not exactly happy with them either.

[Sigh]

Maybe I need to invest in an off-road vehicle to help keep me from lingering in these potholes. Maybe what Jesus is trying to teach me now is how to get hurt, then process, confront, and forgive quicker so these seasons won’t last as long. That’s a lesson that’s worth the pain it takes to get there.