I'm reading an article about Cultural Trauma and Loss. One section talks about Liberian child soldiers ranging from 6 to 20 years of age. The children reported the reason for why they became soldiers: revenge, necessity, seeking belonging, and peer pressure. During the study the children said to the researchers, "Talk to us because we did so many ugly things".
Its easy for me to empathize with a child and why he might become a soldier... he's so young, impressionable, and vulnerable. I find it much more difficult, however, to find forgiveness for the adult(s) who taught those young ones how to hold a gun and kill members of their own communities, other children just like their own brothers and sisters.
Where is justice in forgiveness?
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "How many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
It gets a little harder to consider forgiveness when thinking about a perpetrator. But then I think, maybe they have been a "child soldier" too, someone who's experienced an intense amount of trauma in their own life. Although most people who experience some type of abuse do not go on to abuse other people, most people who abuse others have been abused themselves. So it makes me think, maybe they are like "child soldiers" with adult skin. Still scared, traumatized, and unaware of what true happiness feels like.
I'm not sure that they really actually deserve forgiveness, but I do know that healing comes through forgiveness. Maybe not at first, but after the pain subsides a bit. It does not mean forgetting the wrong doing or offering no consequence. But it does mean that you get a little bit of freedom back. Freedom from bondage, from guilt, from shame.
At some time we will all feel like saying, "Talk to [me] because [I]'ve done so many ugly things". Talk to me so that I feel some sense of normalcy. Smile at me so that I can believe in something good. Hug me so that I can feel close to something. A little bit of forgiveness can go a long way.
Forgiveness is my favorite word in the bible.
ReplyDeleteWhen I became a Christian, I thought I had done a complete 180 degree turn from the hate-filled, vengeful person I was but I never completely released people, that abused me, from the anger I had toward them.
I had to come to a point in knowing that Jesus loves me despite the fact that I've turned on Him so many times. Combining that with the knowledge that the hatred I felt almost completely consumed me, there was no other way to continue my life until I met with one of my abusers and told him, to his face, that I forgave him. After doing that, the forgiveness I extended to other abusers and everyone else that pained/pains me, came easy.
The hardest part that I still deal with is learning to forgive myself. Now that's difficult...
Know what's interesting? Forgiveness I can do, its the compassion that gets me! You hurt me, fine, I'll forgive you... but I won't love you.
ReplyDeleteThat, to me, is what makes Jesus so extraordinary. He forgave over and over and then LOVED with all his being.
Good entry, Linds. Makes me think, and you know how I just love to think. :)
Wow, thanks for sharing your comments ladies. I appreciate your authenticity and your willingness to share.
ReplyDeleteJen - thank you for sharing. That must be so difficult to walk through.
Erin - I hear what you're saying. They both are hard for me :)