The woman who ran a stop sign and hit my dad had a long history of reckless and inattentive driving, which kind of made me hate her. Actually if I were being honest, I’m not even sure I could say that I hated her. What I felt for her was more than hate—I felt indifferent. My mom told me once that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. And that’s what I felt for her—whatever was at the farthest end of the spectrum of love—that’s where my heart was.
Although I was at the scene of the accident shortly after it happened, I never got the chance to meet her. I don’t even think I could tell you her name if you asked. I guess I never really saw her as a person; to me, she was just the driver. The driver behind the wheel of a car who ran into someone I loved very, very much. But a few months later, I did face her in a court room. We all did—my mom, sister and me. Because of the nature of the accident and given her reckless driving history, the state brought serious charges against her. She plead not guilty. Which kind of made me hate her all over again. Not only did she plead not guilty, but her lawyer argued that she couldn’t serve jail time because her kids needed her. I hated that. What about my dad’s kids who needed him? What about me? She kept saying that she just didn’t see him. That she looked both ways and she just didn’t see him. Forgiveness is difficult when people make excuses for what they’ve done, isn’t it? It seemed simple to me. You stop at the stop sign and proceed when the intersection is clear. The intersection was not clear. You did not stop. You made a mess of things. You made a mess of me.
In the end, she was sentenced to three months in jail. It didn’t seem like enough. But deep down I knew that there would never be any such thing as enough. Sometimes there just isn’t a way for someone to make up for what they’ve put you through, is there? When we were on our way out, I wasn’t sad, there wasn’t any justification, I didn’t feel anything. I just knew I never wanted to see her again. I wanted her to go to jail and I wanted her to be miserable. Maybe even forever. In that moment (and for many, many moments in years to come), I fixated on my own pain so much that I couldn’t enter in to anyone else’s.
As I was walking out of the courthouse, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that to this day has impacted me more than I’ve ever said out loud. My mom walked up to that woman and gave her a hug. Not a pity hug either. A real, genuine, its-going-to-be-okay, you-really-messed-up-but-I-forgive-you hug. She even invited her over to our home. In a split second, my mom made the decision to enter in. To look beyond her own brokenness and enter in to someone else’s.
That incident has stayed with me for years. When that woman deserved love the least (at least in my eyes), she needed it the most. When love was nowhere to be found in my mom’s heart, she stepped forward and showed love anyway. Maybe it didn’t take much for my mom to step forward and maybe it took everything she had. I’m not sure. What I do know is that she didn’t let her feelings have a say. Too often we allow our feelings to dictate our decision to forgive but true forgiveness is never based on feelings, it’s a decision we make intentionally. And it makes me wonder about the kind of world we could live in if we all stepped forward in love even when we didn’t feel like it and especially toward the people who deserved it the least. What if we entered in to someone else’s brokenness instead of walling ourselves off with bitterness? What if we made an honest effort to recognize that hurting people hurt people and that most people don’t intentionally hurt us?
I think that’s the kind of world Jesus died to give us. There’s a verse in the Bible that says when the soldiers came to arrest him and take him to the cross, that Jesus knew exactly what he was about to suffer through and he stepped forward anyway. (John 18:4). He stepped forward for me. He stepped forward for you. He also stepped forward for that person that has damaged your heart beyond repair—the one you couldn’t possibly forgive. Jesus stepped forward so we could be forgiven. And that’s the thing about grace, it has a ripple effect. When it’s shown to us, especially when we least deserve it, we are better equipped to extend grace to others. When we witness people forgiving the unforgivable, we learn that we too, can forgive the unforgivable.
I think that forgiveness is the greatest act of love. And I don’t believe that one can exist without the other. So I want to continue this conversation and piece apart what forgiveness really looks like. Because in a world that teaches us to look out for ourselves and values pride above all else, I need you to know that there can be a world—your world—where people can still love people, regardless of the circumstances, of the pain, or of the mistakes. Where no one is too far gone beyond the reach of grace. I need you to know that there doesn’t have to be a “too late” or “never again.” I need you to know that damage doesn’t have to be permanent, scars can heal and relationships can be restored. I need you to know it so you can remind me, often and always, that forgiveness matters. That forgiveness makes a difference. And that forgiveness is how we love.
Next week Soon, I’ll write a post about everything I’ve learned about forgiveness, and I hope you can weigh in on what you’ve learned about forgiveness because I know that I have plenty more to learn too. We’ll talk soon.