Everything I Have Built

I'm having a lot of anxiety about the labor and delivery I will go through in a few months, and it has nothing to do with fear of physical pain.

When I gave birth to my son several things happened that, when I think about them today, still feel as sharp as a knife to the heart. In fact,  I cannot think of the overwhelming joy of giving birth to him without also feeling the overwhelming devastation that came with the circumstances surrounding his birth.

Imagine doing the most important work you will ever do in your life and feeling simultaneously like the most unimportant person in the room.

It started months before I went into labor with him, and it continued months afterwards. I felt small and insignificant and like what I said, or did, didn't really matter. If I'm being totally honest, I still feel that way and I have to keep telling myself that what I feel isn't the truth.

But it feels like the truth.

Those four words in the title of this post were part of a sentence that has rocked the fragile foundation I'm standing on, and brought up every old feeling and fear I've spent almost three years trying to bury beneath layers of "get over it" "move on" and "let it go." This morning I realized that the only layer I really need is "forgiveness."

There is nothing harder in this world, or more necessary, than forgiveness. With me, it goes something like this:

"Oh, certainly I forgive you. But I will never, ever, ever, ever forget what you've done. I'll carry it with me forever so that you will never be able to hurt me this way again. I'll keep this all to myself so that when you wrong me, I won't feel the slightest hesitation about wronging you in return."

So, basically I don't forgive you at all.

Another word for "forgiveness" is "absolution" which means "a formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment." I need to absolve people from my own personal guilt trips and passive aggressive punishments, and from statements like, "well based on past experience I can only expect..."

Here we will transition into the all powerful word of the year: Love.

In 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) verse 5 says that love is "not self-seeking, is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong."(NIV)

Love is forgiveness and forgiveness is love.

I'm a writer with the memory for wrongs suffered like an elephant. Not only do I have a mental list of every wrong you've done to me,  chances are I also have a physical list (in the form of a journal) somewhere that I can refer back to in case I forget. I like to think of myself as "made in the image of God" in this aspect. He also has a list.

The only difference is He's already forgiven me for everything I've done up to this point on the list and everything I haven't gotten to do yet. We love because He loved us first. We forgive because He has forgiven us first, and fully. I'm glad He doesn't say things to me like "Well, chances are you are going to screw up again cause you did on such and such a date..."

My point is that if I want to love like God, then I have to forgive like Him too.

I should probably go ahead and start layering that new foundation with forgiveness so it can harden into a love so sure that no fear can creep through.