Oftentimes, much of the healing we so desperately need is on the other side of pain. When our body suffers a wound, there is pain, and during the healing process we may continue to experience pain.
I have been suffering with plantar fasciitis for a few months now. As painful as it is, the therapy to work towards the haling process is even more painful. I really want to be better. I want to experience full healing in my foot, mainly because I am hindered from the daily routine of running that I had established before the injury.
My running routine was so good for my body and my mind and heart. The ironic thing is that because of the running routine and some bad pre-run, during run and post run habits - the plantar fasciitis emerged.
So I have a choice. Go through more pain, retrain my mind and body to run properly so I can get back to health, or I can just move on in life. Cope with the foot pain, and forget about the therapeutic benefits that running afforded me. Either way, there is pain involved.
I’m not writing about running. I’m writing about forgiveness. I’ll get to that eventually. Today like many days since I have been unable to run - I took a bike ride on a path that has been a new kind of therapy for me. It is a form of physical exercise, it gets me moving through nature in the outdoors and it provides the meditation time I need. The path crosses over streams and goes through wooded areas. It’s just me and the trail and my thoughts.
I’ve started to realize these trail rides that last about 45 min to an hour have themes. Emotional themes, thought pattern themes, inspirational themes, spiritual themes etc.
Today’s theme and it is a consistently recurring theme for me - was forgiveness. I, like you, have been deeply emotionally wounded many times throughout my life. And there are triggers that will refresh those wounds and bring the pain to the surface again. Our very personalty shape, the way we are naturally wired determines in what ways and in what situations we are most vulnerable to emotional wounding.
My emotional pain was making me sick. It was making me sick physically. It still tries to make me sick physically. It still tries to make me sick mentally. Mental illness isn’t for a handful of people who have been institutionalized - mental illness infects all of us. Just as very few people are in perfect physical condition, very few people are emotionally and mentally in perfect condition.
So my ride today was a mental health ride. It was a painful ride, a healing ride, a forgiveness ride. The therapy to keep me on a healing path involves locating those wounds that are making me sick, and doing the emotional exercises to move towards my healing.
O sure I could just say Jesus took my wounds so I can be healed and act like that’s the end of it. But there is a deeper truth that I would miss if I left it at that. I am to go to that cross with him, and to know Him truly in the fellowship of His suffering to know what it means to forgive freely, no strings attached, no recompense offered in return.
The forgiveness process takes the burden, feels the weight of it, takes it to the cross, gives it to Jesus and leaves it there. And while we are there, at the cross, we feel the guilt of our own sin and shortcomings as well at the tremendous freedom of being forgiven by Jesus as He looks into our eyes and says, “I forgive you, go and sin no more.”
If we are to stay healthy, to live in the most desired place of health in every way - we have to maintain proper diet and exercise in the forgiveness department. Pretending it didn’t happen to us, acting like we have forgotten those times of emotional wounding and abuse isn’t healthy. Stuffing it down in some dark hole like a monster we have locked in a prison with a key of self-denial is the ultimate lie. When we do that we are living in incongruence with our truest self and working against our emotionally healthy self.
Foot rolling on ice, stretches, foam rolling, toe stretching, these things really suck and are super painful. But they serve to break down the tissue that needs to grow back healthier. Those exercises serve to strengthen and train muscles the way they are supposed to function to support balance, health and bodily balance.
I have been exposed recently to behaviors in people around me that have caused a flare up in some old wounds. I started having stress dreams again, my psyche trying to solve issues that it can’t resolve. My emotional soul crying out, “why?” So it’s time for some soul rolling on ice, some painful foam rolling of the mind and emotions, some painful stretching that is needed to bring balance, and to bring perspective and health back.
A Letter of Forgiveness to those I have perceived to be responsible for the Wounds of My Soul
To my forgiven one,
If I shared with you the context, the time, and the perspective of my wounding you may be in the position of strong denial of any culpability in my wounding. And so I cannot burden you with further responsibility and accountability for my wounds. If I did I would be bringing harm to you, pronouncing a future judgement on you that is not mine to pronounce. Whatever weight you bear is for you alone to be aware of, to have an open ear to the Spirit and voice of the Lord offering you grace to make things right for your health and for the plan of God to be the richest and fullest version it could be in your life. My prayer is that in some way you may have been aware and have come to a repentance before the Lord, it is there where your true repentance belongs, not towards me.
Even though it would somewhere in the fantasy of my mind bring such long desired relief and emotional release that I have longed for. Because it hasn’t come I live in faith as though it has, so I can release you and receive what the Lord has for me.
For my part I must verbalize the extent of my experience, I must write this to release it once again for my heart to be healed and to move on with God’s plan and purpose for my life.
I forgive you for speaking words of good intention toward my well being that you were never able to fulfill. I thank you for at least having the desire to do so, even though the action and follow through never manifest. I don’t blame you for saying things you can’t follow through on, I suppose most of us do that in some way on a regular basis.
I forgive you for giving a listening ear to corrupt communication that did not fairly represent my integrity, my heart, nor my character. I forgive you for insulating yourself against honest and open communication that would have been healthy for our relationship and the health of so many in our circles of influence.
I forgive you for thinking because the uniqueness of my personality the issues between us were all mine. I forgive you for misusing and misapplying scripture to manipulate and control me emotionally and bully me into a pattern of behavior that suited you and your purposes.
I forgive you for being so caught up in a subculture of privilege and prominence you didn’t know how to boldly address it and bring some freedom to everyone in the organization.
I forgive you for withholding what was good towards me when it was in the power of your hand to do so.
I forgive you for making so many decisions on my behalf, assuming you knew how I felt, assuming what would be good for me without talking to me, for not being patient with my meditative, processing personality so we could move together stronger each uniquely thriving for a common purpose.
I forgive you for abandoning me physically and emotionally. For running, for presuming that you somehow know who I am, who I have become. I forgive you for never really coming clean nor taking responsibility, for never giving a sincere apology without the, “If I offended you,” clause of plausible deniability.
I forgive you for using humor as a screen to avoid the pain of sincere brokenness and humility to make amends to admit the wrong and make it right.
I forgive you for paying for my silence.
I forgive you for choosing criticism over affirmation, for stating facts instead of extending faith towards my unlimited potential.
I forgive you for seeing me through the eyes of your wounds, for the sin of projecting the sins of others onto me and holding me in bondage to them.
I forgive you for gas lighting me, and for using me to the furthering of your personal fulfillment.
I forgive you for expecting me to be something I am not.
I forgive you for humiliating me in a public meeting in a way that only you and I knew of the vengeance, anger and retribution you were exacting on me as a result of an unfair assessment of my perspective on a promise made and a present predicament.
And I forgive you for making it about an offense I brought, while never truly owning your part of it. I forgive you for not realizing that the bigger person and the role of leader and influencer was yours - which made it so much worse. It never really did feel like a Matthew 18 moment, it felt like an exacted revenge and a lesson to never cross you again. For that, I forgive you. You will never know how I felt, because I choose not to do what you did to me.
I forgive you for taking my candor as a character assassination and holding me in low esteem, believing the worst of intent from the best I had to bring in my content.
I forgive you for playing favorites and for taking more than your fair share.
I forgive you for every word of gossip and slander spoken in secret against me.
I forgive you for believing more in your past, then in God’s desire, promise and purpose for our combined future.
I forgive you for the passive aggressive communication to promote your agenda and expecting me to champion it.
I forgive you for pushing your agenda on me while out of insecurity blocking my vision and God’s call to ministry from entering the realm of your possibility.
I forgive you for using me as just another number, just another follower, just another stepping stone on the path of your success.
I forgive you. I am letting you go. Again. There is healing in my pain. There is growth from my humility and willingness to be overlooked, to be used.
I am willing to keep going to the cross, to ask for forgiveness, to offer forgiveness and to receive forgiveness.
Many will miss the beauty and the worship this kind of release brings. The private tears, the private pain. The hours in the embrace of the Lord if we will run to Him with our hurts, and not run away from Him and remain hurt.
If you read this, go write a letter of your own and let Jesus hear your heart ache. Let him see your forgiveness and bring healing to your mind to your soul and to your body.
By His stripes we are healed healed. He forgives me and heals me. I forgive you and in Jesus, I am healed.