Forgiveness

I have been a fan of Brandi Carlile since before it was cool. I love her voice, her energy and her music. She's a musician's musician. She tells stories with her music. 

Brandi Carlile

For the past few years, I have been trying to move on from a hard time in my life. I happened across her 2015 album By The Way, I Forgive You, and I listened to the first song, Every Time I Hear That Song. The chorus of the song says 

By the way, I forgive you. After all, maybe I should thank you. For giving me what I've found, 'Cause without you around, I've been doing just fine. Except for any time I hear that song. 

The album made me realize that I needed to take a look at forgiveness. As Brandi says "Forgiveness is so radical and so filthy, and it gets made out to be such a casual concept, when really it might be one of the deepest things that we do as humans — to forgive for real deep hurts."  

Even before I wrote this article tonight I was discussing forgiveness with someone in a Paltalk Chatroom and I mentioned that I went from making $15,000 a year to making 3 times that in a job and how I had forgiven the person that helped me lose my $15,000 a year job that set me for what I have now. One of the admins must have gotten jealous because I was bounced and banned from the room. I could choose to be offended by this decision, but the truth is, this person doesn't like me, they never have. So instead of being angry, I am choosing to forgive them. 

But forgiveness is messy, especially when you don't know what you did. I don't know what I did to the admin in the room. I probably never will. That is okay. 

One of my favorite stories that I read while working on this article is from Brandi Carlile herself. In a NPR interview Brandi recounted a time that she had committed to baptism and her pastor decided the day of the baptism to not baptize her because she was gay. 

The Mayo Clinic states 

Forgiveness means different things to different people. Generally, however, it involves a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always be with you, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help free you from the control of the person who harmed you.

Three years ago, before I found out that my church was no longer going to support my calling to ministry I told this story in a sermon: 

There is a legend about a boy who was carrying an old, bent bird cage. Inside was a tiny field sparrow. A man stopped the boy and asked him what he was going to do with the bird. 

"Well..." the boy said.”I think I’ll play with it for a while, and then when I’m tired of playing with it -- I think I’ll kill it." He made that last comment with a wicked grin on his young face. 

Moved with compassion for the bird, the man asked, "How much would you sell me that bird for?" 

"You don’t want this bird, mister," the boy said with a chuckle. "It’s just a field sparrow." But then he saw the old gentleman was serious. 

"You can have this bird for – $100" he said slyly. It was an astronomical price for a bird worth only pennies. The man paid the money and then he let the bird go.

This is what Jesus did for us. You see, an evil specter called Sin had us caged much like that bird. We were unable to escape. Then Jesus came up to Sin and said, ‘What are you going to do with those people in that cage? "‘These people?’ Sin answered with a laugh. ‘I’m going to teach them to hate each other. Then I’ll play with them until I’m tired of them -- and then I’ll kill them.’

"‘How much to buy them back?’ Jesus asked. With a sly grin, Sin said, "You don’t want these people, Jesus. They’ll only hate you and spit on you. Why, they’ll even nail you to a cross! If you really want them", Sin continued " it’ll cost you dearly. It will cost all of your tears and all of your blood -- your very life."

For God to forgive us, Jesus died and it was messy, it was publicly humiliating, he was given a criminals death. But in the end, we gained our spiritual freedom. 1 John 9:1 says 

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So if God, the creator the universe can forgive us, should we not be able to forgive our brethren?  

My own story, that rough patch, I was going through, has been forgiven. In fact, I really think it was listening to Brandi's music that helped me realize that I needed to really forgive this person. Even when I told a family member about the hardship I had faced, I said "Ya know, what happened wasn't right, but I forgive this person...because it set me up for success." And the person who bounced me and banned me from the room? Maybe someday I can forgive them...