I FACEBOOK-STALKED YOU TODAY

I facebook-stalked you today.

You and I haven't spoken for a long time. There was once ugliness between us -- hostilities we could forgive but not quite forget -- and I think we both just stopped trying and went our separate ways.

Sometimes that makes me sad -- we once meant a lot to each other. But, time and life moves on, and if I'm honest, I don't spend much time dwelling on it anymore. We are part of each other's pasts, but not meant to be part of each other's futures.

But, every once in a while, I think of you. I wonder how you're doing. I think about what drove us apart and how I could have handled things then and later differently - but mostly, I just hope good things for you. I don't want your life to be painful.

So I peeked a little into your life -- And I can say these things truthfully.

I am happy for you for the good things you have encountered since we were last friends. I'm glad that you have people in your life who support you. I'm deeply sorry for the hardships you have encountered and the pain that has tried to break you. Interestingly, I think that you and I, as individual people, have hardened and softened in not-dissimilar ways. We probably have a lot of parallels in that journey, though they really don't look the same, and I'm not sure that our pieces still fit together in the way they once did.

And while I'm not sure reconciliation is in our future -- it could be if we were both better at forgetting and forgiving and trusting.

All that said -- I'm okay with where we are. Time has healed much, and I still love you and I still pray good things for you, whether our paths cross again or not.

May God keep you well.

FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION

At the beginning of the year, I reflected a lot on the topics that I have felt the most drawn to writing about over the past almost-ten years -- and I sort of revisited them in 2019 versions. I tried to think about where I have been and where I am now -- and how my thoughts have changed and evolved -- or even stayed steady -- in that time. I thought about how I've changed and grown, and where I see myself as still being a work in progress.

My last one, as it made sense in the story arc, dealt with forgiveness.  Both forgiveness of others and forgiveness of myself -- two places that I always feel struggle.

I thought about what forgiveness is and what it does and what it's for. I thought about it opening up a door to being able to have a sense of peace. I thought it being a way to let go of anger and bitterness. I thought about how not finding it becomes a stumbling block to your own healing and your own health.

But, because I knew that I wasn't quite there yet, I didn't really think about what comes after the forgiveness. I think that forgiveness is mostly a requirement for reconciliation to take place. But, I don't always think that reconciliation is necessarily the best next step forward for every situation. Sometimes forgiveness is the precursor to simply moving on, and not to starting over.

In its most recent form in my life, my hurts have stemmed from various manifestations of someone I cared for just not being who I thought they were, or who I wanted them to be. And once that road to forgiveness was walked, nostalgic instincts aside, I found that I was happier with distance. Forgiveness was necessary. Reconciliation was not. And, excepting some nagging regrets, I am happy in that place.

THEMES OF MY LIFE: FORGIVENESS

After the letting go... there is a time to explore forgiveness. That's a word we throw around a lot, but I don't always stop to examine what it means -- what it is, and what it isn't, and why I can find it hard.

I have a tendency to think that forgiveness is saying, "Oh, that's okay, don't worry about it" and moving on.  But, I'm not sure that's it. Forgiveness isn't just forgetting what happened, or saying that what happened didn't matter -- that it doesn't matter. Because it does.

It does matter.

Especially at the moment where you're moving on and letting go, forgiveness has to be a lot more about you than it is about them. It's a lot more for you than it is for them. It's what begins to heal your wounds. It stops what they did from turning into your bitterness and anger and shame. None of us want to be shackled to an unhappy past -- and wallowing in the hate that can build just keeps us chained to it.

Choosing to forgive sets us free from those chains. It helps us rise above what happened -- not because what they did doesn't matter -- but because we do.

But, it's hard. Sometimes I don't want to. I want to stay here where I can be a little angry.

So, I have to be straight about what happened. I have to admit the choices I made, and the ones that they did. This is not the place to sugarcoat for anyone, but it's also not the place to let my judgment fly. Neither for them nor for me. Just be straight...

I need to learn from the past -- but I also need to let it stay there. I live so much in my head sometimes that it's tempting to re-litigate everything that happened. Everything they did. Everything I did. Conversations I'd like to do over.

But you can't go back and change those things.  You can't go back and change who you were. You can't go back and change who they were. All you can do is to choose differently going forward. And, like letting go, sometimes that's a choice you have to keep making.

I'm not done with this step. I know I'm not.  Sometimes I think that I am, and I feel like I can finally take a breath.  And then... my resentment and bitterness flare up, and I realize, "Okay.  Not quite there yet."

I'm not sure it's really them that I have trouble forgiving -- but me.

I can forgive them for lying to me. I have a harder time forgiving myself for believing those lies, for excusing it, for not calling them on it, and for deciding to live with it.  And somehow or somewhy, that manifests itself as still being angry with them.  Because, I guess, I'm angry at us both.

I need to be able to offer the same forgiveness to myself that I try to extend to them. I need it to be okay that I was flawed in all of this, too. And probably I need that more.  Them, I can say Goodbye to.  Me, I have to live with for quite awhile.

And, all of this said, even as I still walk toward that forgiveness and even as I know that I'm not there yet -- I'm not upset about that. I have walked this path before, and I know that I will get there with some time and with some distance. It will come.

Just not yet.

FORGIVING THE GIRLS I'VE BEEN

Sometimes I look back on the people I have been at earlier points in my life -- and I cringe.

Things I've said that I regret...
... that I did.
... that I thought.
Weaknesses I let have free rein.

It embarrasses me that they embodied the person that I was. As time has gone on and I've continued to grow and mature, as we all do, I have left many of those things behind. Or, at least I hope I have. My thoughts have become softer, my convictions gentler, my words kinder, my actions more controlled...

I wish that I was no longer trailed by the worst of the girls I've been. I wish that I could be forgiven. I yearn for my mistakes to no longer be held against me. I wish to be out of those girls' shadows.

But, in the end... while there are a few people who truly do hold those "me's of the past" against me and can't give me the freedom to change -- I know that the worst offender is myself.

I'm the one who punishes me for my past the worst.
I'm the one who can't forgive myself.
I'm the one who can't let it go.

I'VE BEEN THINKING

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. I've been thinking about what is reasonable to expect from a friendship, and what is not. 

I've been thinking where I fall on those things.. where I'm a good friend, where I'm not.  Where I have been and where I haven't.

I've been thinking about honesty, and what that means. I've been thinking about how honesty isn't just "not lying" and how misleading inferences and omission of the truth is just as dishonest as outrightly speaking lies.

I've been thinking about respect and the importance of showing up... and how it really isn't that hard.

I've been thinking about grace and forgiveness. I've been thinking about patience.

I've been thinking about the pulling-in that happens when someone speaks unkindly to you.

I've been thinking about all these things...  and perhaps sometime, I'll be ready to write more about them.  

But today, I'm just thinking about them.

YOUR HARDENED HEART

It hurt when they lied to you, when they couldn't see the plea in your heart. Didn't it?

And so you hardened yours, and you turned away, and you said it didn't matter. You said you were fine.

But you weren't. Not really. A hard heart isn't fine.

You tried to make it okay. And you tried to heal. And you tried to forgive. Maybe you were successful, maybe you weren't. And yet your heart is still hard.  Because if you don't soften it, then it can't be hurt again.

Then, you can't be hurt again.

But a hard heart doesn't get to feel much love, either. A hard heart is tough to find a way into, and repels a multitude of attempts.

You want to protect... but what you really need to do is trust.  Even if you get hurt again, what you need is trust.

FORGIVEN, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

I've been thinking about the idea of forgiveness again. I struggle with it -- maybe not so much with the idea of forgiveness itself, but with the line that lies between forgiveness and wisdom. I've often walked the side where I have been very open with forgiveness and have let repeat offenders cross line after line. I got burned by that, deeply. And then I cowered back to the other side of the line where I was afraid to let anyone who had hurt me before have the chance to do it again.

It seems that there should be some middle ground there and I'm trying to find it.

I want to be the kind of person who can have the courage to extend grace to those who have been hurtful. But, I also want to be wise and not invite in disaster.  It's like if someone came into your house, totally trashed it, and then left -- without a second thought or a care for what they left you with.  It is a good thing, I think, to be able to forgive them for their actions and their thoughtlessness.  But, would you let them back in to do it a second, third, fourth time?

I guess that's the rub. -- But it's also what I think about on both sides of the coin.  I haven't always been faultless either. I've made choices that I wish I hadn't, said things that I wished I'd kept silent on.  So, when I'm faced with someone else's mistrust, I have to understand that and not be angry over it. I have to understand that maybe they're struggling with forgiveness and the ability to trust, too.

That we're all trying to find that middle ground.

AFRAID TO TRUST YOU

You hurt me.

Or maybe I hurt you, too.  I don't know anymore.

I forgave you for that. I know I tried. I hope you forgave me too.

But when it came to trying again, when it came to putting myself at your mercy...

I held back. I couldn't give you that power.

I'd been hurt once.

That's not even all the way true.  I'd been hurt a lot of times.

I'm not sure you even cared.

I was afraid to trust you. I was afraid to be hurt.

Because, you see, the words you spoke and the things you did, they didn't match up.

I didn't know how to separate the truth from the lies anymore, and I wearied of trying.

I am not a very discerning person. I am often fooled, often hurt.

Some people call that gullible. Some people ridicule that and make me feel that believing people is a shortcoming.

Maybe it is. Maybe it's naivete to hope for and believe in the possibility of the good.

All I know is not being discerning means I'm wrong a lot.

Not being discerning means I hurt a lot.

And I was afraid of hurting again.

So I decided not to trust you.

That remains a decision filled with pain and doubt and sometimes regret.

The past can be loud.

And misleading. We don't always remember the truth, often just a twisted version of it.

But I decided.

And forward is the only direction left to go.