Ive been debating with myself for almost two months whether to write this blog. When Scott commented on my first post about Baggage, I knew that the only way to fully explain what I meant would be to tell a story not every person in my life knows. In fact, I can count on my fingers and toes the number of people who know this. The only person in my family who knows is my mother, so my family, here it is
Scott asked me what I meant by choosing transformation rather than the recognition that we are utterly dependent on Gods wisdom and power to redeem our ragged brokenness? I agree, many times in life we believe in our own personal power to will-away our past. We have the mistaken idea that our own poor choices can be managed and hidden. After all, we got ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out of it. Its this attitude that drives our past further from the present possibility of embracing our ragged brokenness and the redemptive and reconciling power of Christ. But this blog isnt about the kind of baggage that we inflict on ourselves or others. This blog is about the baggage that has been inflicted on us.
Forgiveness. In Christian circles, Ive found the issue of forgiveness is often treated with such cliche driven drivel. Rarely do we talk about the kind of forgiveness necessary in those circumstances where part of ourselves has been ripped from us. For me this took the form of a neighbor, a camper, and the stealing away of my innocence at seven years old. Im sure you can put the pieces together. As a boy I would have nightmares, reliving this event, so afraid, so ashamed. I thought something was wrong with me.
Fast forward to my sophomore year of college. My RD (Resident Director) at a small Christian liberal arts college in Ohio and I had become friends. All year I wanted to talk to him about it but I was ashamed, not about what happened to me but about my response. What I wanted to do to the person who did this to me. A speaker talked about forgiveness in chapel and I got up and walked out. I cried all the way to my dorm room. I knew that my severe hatred had overtaken me. I knew that my continued embrace of hatred would paralyze me.
At 3AM I walked down to my RDs office and, by some miracle, he was there. I sat down, in silence, for what seemed like days. I just sat there, unable to get the words out of my mouth. Unable to verbalize, for the first time, what had been driving me toward a life of self-preservation, not allowing anyone close enough to me to really know me. In fact, that was my life. I kept people at a distance, but close enough that nobody asked any questions.
As I sat there, trying to get the words H-E R-A-P-E-D M-E out of the tightly sealed bottle that had been wedged into the deepest recesses of my soul, I fought one of the most intense battles of my life that would define who I would choose to become. I had to make a choice to begin the long road of forgiveness or continue to live a life of self-preservation. I dont know how long I sat there. But finally,  I slowly formed the words. My RD didnt say anything. He just sat there as I stared at the commercial carpeting in his office. I said it again. I said it again and, finally, those words didnt come so hard.
Complete forgiveness is a process, not the instantaneous thing I had always thought it would be. I met with my RD every week. We talked and read a book, but mainly we just talked. My process took a few years. I began by praying, out loud, God, please help me not want to kill him. Hey, thats extreme but Im just being honest. It took me months to get to the point of not wanting to take his life. Then I began praying, God, help me not to hate him. Again, months went by and I finally reached the point where I prayed, God, help to forgive him. This last part took over a year. I prayed this several times a day. And, finally, when I prayed, the words didnt come so hard.
Its only by the grace of God that I could forgive him, but I had to choose the kind of transformation I told myself I wanted. Its one thing to think you want it. Its an entirely different matter to choose the long, difficult process of asking God to help you forgive when you arent sure you want to be helped. In our ragged brokenness, we choose to allow Christ a space in which he can begin transforming our life, from hate to forgiveness. And out of this crevasse, my life was slowly transformed.
The past eleven years, since I finally uttered those impossible words, Ive had the opportunity to talk to many people in my situation. I dont know how but I can tell when people have had a similar experience. In these conversations, I had to suppress my tendency for self-preservation, the desire not to allow Christ to use all of me regardless of peoples response. I had to embrace my life, all of it.
Embracing all of my life, for me, looks like a very different kind of life. A life where I do what I can for those around me, whether I know them or not. The desire to put myself out there, open and wounded, for people to accept or reject. The desire to not give a rats ass whether or not I would get screwed in the process. Self-preservation doesnt allow us to make the first move, to let others in so deep that they, in turn, feel comfortable uttering those same words to us. Thats shalom. Thats one small way Ive been able to participate in the message of reconciliation and redemption that converges in the cross. To release life in others, I must release it in myself. And, for me, releasing life in myself required me to do the most difficult thing Ive ever done utter those words.

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