Forgiveness

The first time someone asked me if I had been a cheerleader, I laughed out loud. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am now friends with many ladies who were cheerleaders in high school. It’s just that I would not have been friends with them when I was actually in high school.


I was nowhere close to what one would describe as being a part of the “popular crowd” during my growing up years. During the summer between my sixth and seventh grades, my dad was called to pastor a church in a community that we discovered later was known for having residents with a lot of money. I don’t really know how my parents managed to live there—they certainly didn’t have a lot of money. But they did make sacrifices so that they could raise four children and be in the same community where the church was, as my dad always felt that that was an important thing for a pastor to do.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that the kids at my new school didn’t play by any of the rules to which I was accustomed. At (such-and-such) Middle School, if you did not have exactly the right tag on your jeans or the little blue rectangle on the backs of your canvas shoes, you did not belong. Needless to say, my wonderful, loving parents could not afford those tags or blue rectangles.

So, my adolescent years were quite difficult for me. Not always, of course. I had my good friends. But there were some very memorable moments that God would use to shape me and make me into the woman, wife, and mother that I am today.

Some of these events are too embarrassing to mention. In fact, I have a pit in my stomach right now even thinking about some of them. But I will give you an overview of some of the more minor incidents:

In the fifth grade my best friend, Katie, was in the other of two fifth grade classes. She informed me one day (with a sick look on her sweet face) that everyone in her class had made a pact to not speak to me. (Everyone except her, of course.) She didn’t know why they had decided to make this pact, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done.

I was in a fifth/sixth grade combination class. One day, the 6th grade boy in my class on whom I had an enormous crush informed me laughingly and in front of everyone in the room that he had been told of my crush. I was, of course, mortified and never wanted to go back to school.

When I was in the seventh grade, a similar situation took place, only the object of my crush was sitting right beside me as he was informed by another classmate of said crush. That scene plays in my mind like a bad movie. I can still see everyone laughing at me as I tried to shrink into my chair.

Do you remember the Express jeans of the late 80’s? The ones with the button fly and cool, triangular flaps that folded down toward a tapered ankle? (Nice.) Those jeans were, I think, about $45 a pair, so of course I didn’t have them. Oh, I wanted them like crazy. But that amount of money would have fed the four of us kids for a week, so Express jeans were O-U-T. I got the next best thing—knockoffs that were poorly acid-washed. BUT, they had the right fly and the flaps. I couldn’t WAIT to wear them to school! I had a cute little white, collared shirt (collar flipped up, of course,) to wear with them, and I had redesigned my big bangs to complete the look.

I was as nervous as a cat as I sat in my homeroom class, waiting for the popular kids to come in from the bus and hopefully not notice my clothes. Nothin’ doin’. Two girls who were particularly intimidating to me walked in together and noticed me simultaneously.

I will never forget this as long as I draw breath: they looked at each other and screamed. Screamed, I said. Then they took turns slowly walking past me so that they could check out the fake tag on my jeans. Horror of horrors.

Sitting in class during my sophomore year, our teacher left the room for what would become a defining moment in my life…

In this particular class, I was unfortunately seated in a desert wasteland of normal kids, surrounded by other teens who were of the popular group, all friends with each other, and apparently in need of some entertainment at my expense. I was dating a nice guy from another school at the time, and on that day I happened to be wearing his leather jacket. (Can anyone say “1992”?) The moment our teacher stepped out, the kid who sat next to me turned to me and said, “That’s a nice jacket.” It was as though he’d been waiting for this opportunity to mock me. My heart sank. I knew what was coming, and my face was already heating with embarrassment as his friends all turned in their seats to observe the exchange. He continued:

“Is it yours?”

“No.” I quietly replied.

“Whose is it?” He asked, chuckling.

One of the girls close by gave a weak attempt at saving me. “Leave her alone.”

“Whose is it?” He pressed.

I am going to throw up. “My boyfriend’s,” I responded in an almost whisper, inwardly cringing.

He laughed out loud. “YOU have a boyfriend?!”

I was horrified beyond words and couldn’t stop the flow of tears no matter how hard I tried. I was fully aware that no one in their group saw any worth in me, but it was so humiliating to have it out in the open like that.

From that day forward, I became a very confrontational person. It didn’t matter what the subject, if I felt like someone was attacking me personally, I attacked back with a vengeance. I took sinful pride in the idea that I could and would stand up for myself. I wanted people to say, “Oh, you don’t want to mess with her.”

I carried this confrontational attitude into our marriage. Greg and I had the typical arguments during our first year of marriage, but I fought dirty. One time my mom even asked me to my face, “Why are you so mean to him?” Of course it made me angry.

About ten months into our first year, I came home from work to find Greg sitting on the couch waiting for me. I could tell with one glance that he wanted to talk about something important, but I had no idea what it was. I unloaded my things and sat down gingerly, while inside I was preparing for a fight.

Greg didn’t waste any time on small talk. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “You are not the gentle-spirited woman that God intended you to be.”

He was bracing himself for an explosion, but it was not to be. I positively crumbled. I don’t recall ever having wept so forcefully before or since. Greg knew about my school years. He knew of the torment that I had endured. That night, Greg gently led me through a time of prayer and forgiveness toward those who had caused me pain. I realized then that the anger to which I was holding so tightly was causing me more anguish than it could ever cause the ones who had no idea that I was still carrying it like a shield.

If you have hurt in your past--deep, scarring events that have tormented you for years--I beg of you to let the Lord wash those hurts away. I was so miserable in my sinful anger. The bitterness that I thought was protecting me actually had me in bondage.

You may think, “Well, you don’t know what I went through. It was a lot worse than some kids being mean to me.” You’re right. I have no idea. But I do know that Christ endured more pain, more torment than you or I could begin to imagine. And He did it for you and for me. He did it because He loves you so much that He wanted to take the punishment that you and I deserve.

Colossians 3:12-13 says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” God doesn’t promise that it will be easy, but He does give those who have believed in Jesus the strength we need to be able to let go of the hurt and the bitterness.

Trust me, once you’ve let go of the sinful anger that is weighing you down, you will feel like the world has been lifted from your shoulders. I can honestly say that I have forgiven the ones who hurt me so deeply. Those years are behind me, and those experiences have been so useful in teaching our children how to treat (and how not to treat) others. The Lord Jesus has made me into a completely different person than I once was. Numerous friends and family members can and will attest to that.

My prayer for you is that you will allow the Lord to make you into a different person, if need be, and will give you the strength and courage to forgive the one(s) who have hurt you.  He has forgiven you of infinitely more than He would ask you to forgive.