When the real "Enemy" is Inner-Me: Five Thoughts on Forgiveness

If anyone has a right to hold a grudge, it would be Mary Johnson. 

Her only son was murdered by a young man named Oshea Israel, yet her response was anything but typical (This three-minute video might just change your view of forgiveness).



 Mary Johnson's initial reaction wasn't forgiveness. 

"I wanted justice. He was an animal. He deserved to be caged." 

I write this with great sensitivity knowing this situation impacted many people in this community, but I can relate to Mary Johnson's anger and longing for justice.  When a friend of mine was murdered, convictions and long prison sentences didn't bring the peace I thought they would. I grew angry and bitter and that bitterness began to take a toll on me and those closest to me.

Earlier this year, however, everything began to change.

God began walking me down a path of introspection and healing. Even though I said I had forgiven, deep down I really hadn't. Then God allowed me, like Mary Johnson, to forgive what - for years - seemed unforgivable to me.

Here are five things I've learned on this journey...

•  Forgiveness doesn't usually happen overnight. Forgiveness is a process. For years, I told myself and others that I had forgiven when true forgiveness had never taken place in my heart. When I saw photos or heard the names of the men who took my friend's life, all of the emotions would come rushing back. Many lives were changed on 12/12/00, and we are all likely in different places on our journey to forgive. It takes time.

• Refusing to forgive punishes us and the people around us, but rarely the person who originally hurt us. We often believe that refusing to forgive allows us to have power over someone who hurt or victimized us. In reality, the person that unforgiveness has power over is us. I was filled with bitterness and hatred and it was damaging relationships with the people I loved the most - not those who had hurt me. As Mary Johnson shares in the video, "Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out." The only way to be free from its power is to make the choice to forgive. 

• Choosing to forgive isn't something we can do in our own "power." Forgiveness isn't natural, but supernatural. For years, I'd said I had forgiven when the true work of forgiveness had never really happened in my heart. I really didn't want to, it just seemed like the Christian thing to say. I could only make the decision to forgive after God revealed my refusal to do so and worked in me by His Spirit to truly forgive. 

• Forgiveness allows us to see more clearly. The day I chose to forgive, I read Luke 23:34 where Christ on the cross says “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” God allowed me, for the first time, to see the humanity of the men who took the life of my friend.  He also helped me better understand His heart for all of humanity. I was able to see all the lives that were left broken as a result of what happened that night. While I knew my friend's family members and friends had suffered deeply, my hatred and bitterness never allowed me to consider the lives of the other families and friends that were left changed as a result. Over the last year, God has helped me to see that no one wins in situations like these and there are victims on both sides.

• Extending forgiveness brings healing. After choosing to forgive, I wrote letters to the men who were in prison for the death of my friend. I shared the hatred and bitterness that I had carried for years and how God's forgiveness of me had changed my life and was helping me extend that same forgiveness to them. To my surprise, they wrote me back. Forgiving them or beginning a friendship with them doesn't absolve them of the crime they've committed or restore all the brokenness that resulted from this situation. It does, however, free me from the prison of my hatred and bitterness. It reminds me of God's mercy towards me and that someone else paid a debt for me I could never pay myself.  In the words of C.S. Lewis: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

I wrote this with hopes that my story would help encourage others. I would love to hear how you are wrestling through the issue of forgiveness.

Emily Lassiter is wife to Chris Lassiter and mother to their five beautiful children (Read her other guest post here). She is the Coordinator for Valley YoungLives, an outreach ministry to pregnant and parenting teenage mothers. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or email her at younglivesvalley@gmail.com.