I would love to tell you that being in ministry means that no one is jerk, no one takes advantage of others, and everything is hymn singing and harmonies. But I'd be lying.
It's the end of the semester. A long but fast semester as it turns out. I'm still two papers away from the end of this semester (graduation in May...) and I've got little energy to put towards those papers, much less anything else.
But then something comes up and I find myself absolutely hating someone. I'm being vague intentionally and I'm sorry that I have to be. But it doesn't really matter as the issue is not the person, but the hate.
I'm not one to hate. I just don't. I find that I go back to anyone I have issues with and we resolve them, even if we can never return to the level of trust and intimacy we had previously. I don't like burning bridges, etc. I'm friends (in some sense of the word) with all of my exes and two good friends who really hurt me.
What do you do when the issues can't be resolved? When you've made the effort again and again (and again) to figure out how to be in relationship with a person and you keep getting walked on? I'm at a loss.
And yet, as a soon-to-be-pastor, I feel as if I should be moving towards forgiving. I should let grace abound and get over it. I should move on. What's that whole thing about forgiveness being for the person forgiving, not the one being forgiving? Don't hold on to hate. Etc., etc..
Perhaps it is too soon. Perhaps I'm just up to my ears in emotion and need to give myself a few years to cool off....
2 comments:
Forgiving isn't the same as forgetting, and often forgiving requires time to separate from the situation and the emotion of it. I know you'll get there, just remember, that you don't have to go back to be walked on again, that's not what forgiveness is.
As someone who went through a situation that also incited hatred during the last year of my seminary career, I know that the best healing happens when you are removed from the place where the hurt happened. And with the healing comes the forgiveness. You need to be as gracious with yourself as you are trying to be with the one who incited the hatred.
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