It's Not About You

Although the focus of this blog is forgiveness, it also touches on another tangential truth: sometimes what we suffer has little to do with us, and everything to do with others.

When Rachel died in childbirth at Ramah, Scripture says she could not be comforted. Seems like that would be natural, right, when everything about the birth seemed to be going south? To the natural eye, yes. To the spiritual ... Bible scholars propose that her great lament referenced in Matthew 2 gives a bird's eye view of the pain in God's own heart over the babes killed by the ruthless Herod in Bethlehem and its environs (that would include Ramah, where Rachel died). Her inconsolable cries were prophetic, the fulfillment of the prophesy set forth in Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel was crying not only for her own situation, but for the loss of life that would occur centuries later. What she was going through was by far more outreaching than the circle of her own life and world. There are times when God uses what we go through to touch others, to comfort them, to show them how much He loves them. It's not always all about us.

Now to how forgiveness can be a part of this outpouring of God's heart in our lives.

Not to make you jealous or anything, but I have the most wonderful brother in the world. Do I need counseling? No problem--call Al. Do I need prayer? No problem--call Al. Do I need a shoulder to cry on? No problem--call Al. But just a few months ago I had him pulling out his hair.

"Please, Janine," he begged , "don't do this to me! I don't want to go your deathbed and be tortured with wondering if you forgave Mom or not!"

Till a year before her death, the bulk of Mom's care fell to yours truly. Then, a little over a year before she passed away, my husband felt led for us to move back to his home state. That's when the weight of all Mom's care fell in poor Al's lap.

Yes, Mom was in a facility (long story short, she had so many disabilities we needed help with her care), but there had to be frequent visits to keep in close contact with her nurses and daily caretakers and make sure all the p's and q's of her care were just-so and up to date. It doesn't seem like "much", but until you've been responsible for someone like that, you don't realize the weight of it.

I shed many tears over leaving my mom, even if at that point her cognition was greatly impaired. But now, looking back, I shed just as many tears at the realization of the glory unleashed by God in transferring the care of my mother to my brother.

I loved my mother and she loved me, but we had one of those classical strained mother-daughter relationships. The little girl in me selfishly clung to the hope that one day my mother would apologize for the way in which my brother and I were brought up (think: dysfunctional family). That, coupled with mom's ferocious clinging to the pain in her own childhood (think: not forgiving her mother for imagined hurts, and, if I explained it to you, you would see the truth of the word imagined) made for a difficult relationship.

Once, while visiting us, Mom began her unrelenting venting, once again reciting the long litany of grievances against her mother. "Janine, all I want is for Mom and me to have a wonderful relationship like you and I do!"

I bit my tongue and began shooting up fervent prayers for guidance to Heaven. Should I open my big mouth and say, "Mom, the only reason you and I have a 'good' relationship is because I don't tell you all the times you hurt me"? Or should I zip it up?

If you have ever seen the sit-com Everybody Loves Raymond, his mother was a spin off of my mom. Really. My husband joked from the pulpit one time, "I have a wonderful relationship with my mother-in-law--she lives 400 miles away!" The congregation broke out in great big belly laughs--my mother among them. She thought it a great joke. It was. It was also very true.

So I prayed--and heard nothing. My lips remained zipped. Once you let the cat out of the bag, you can't put it back. Later, in private, I asked for my husband's take on whether I should have taken that moment as an opportunity to unload my own litany of grievances. Shaking his head, he said, "No, Janine. She wouldn't have understood where you're coming from. You would have only hurt her and made your relationship even worse. It's better just to take your hurts to the Lord."

So I kept my own hurts close to the vest, but I did try off and on to encourage my mother to forgive her mom. When I came to the Lord in my teenage years I knew that following Jesus meant forgiving past hurts, so I had laid my relationship with my mother before Him, saying, "Lord, I know You say I need to forgive her and I do--in my head. But You know that my heart says otherwise, it still feels the wounds of all those hurts. I can't forgive her totally without Your help. So I lay my heart before You and ask for Your help." I put that broken heart on the shelf and simply waited for the time when God would help me walk through those hurts with healing in His wings. A few months later, as I took inventory of the state of my heart, it was with grateful gladness that I realized that all the resentment towards my mother had dissipated and was no more. Although I still longed to hear a verbal apology from my mother, there was no bitter resentment in my heart. It was okay. And I wanted that very same blessing for my mom.

Then came the last time I tried to bridge the gap between Grandma and Mom. Grandma had already gone on to her reward, but my mom still clung to her grudges.

"You know, Mom, " I said that day, "Grandma ..."

With an angry frown and a sharp tone, my mother cut me off. "Janine, I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it. Don't ever talk to me about this again."

I blinked. Well. I guess that's putting it succinctly. My mother knew I was going to put Grandma's case before her again, ask her to consider forgiving her, but she once and for all closed the door to that discussion in my face. From that day on, about two years before her death, all I did was pray. No more verbal appeals for mercy for Grandma.

Now, let me tell you a dirty little secret about our family. Although I knew my mother loved me, it was not to the degree enjoyed by my brother. All you had to say was "Al" and Mom's face would light up. I was her beloved daughter, but it was her son who walked on water. And yes, I did struggle with a little jealousy over that. Be that as it may, the time came when the ordinary daughter moved away, and the beloved son became Mom's point of contact.

As Mom's health deteriorated, my brother struggled, even as I had, with the weight of my mother's unforgiveness towards her own mother. She had one foot in the grave but, though she had professed Jesus as her Lord and Savior, she still carried that unforgiveness around.

It was Jesus Himself Who said, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15). My brother is a big believer in grace, but even he quailed before this commandment. He didn't want Mom's entrance to Heaven stymied in any way because of baggage of which she wouldn't let go.

My brother began to plead with her, over and over, not knowing if it was "getting" to her because of her impaired cognition and resounding health debilities. And that's when it hit me. My moving away had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Mom. For the first time in my life I saw the wonderful blessing of my brother being the favored child. My mother might not listen to me, but if there was any hope whatsoever of her embracing forgiveness at this stage in her life, it had to come through the ministrations of my brother. Then I shed more tears for having moved away--tears of gladness that the move had been the catalyst for my brother being the one to be with my mom in her last months. That fact alone gives me hope that, despite her disabilities, Mom was able to hear the call to forgiveness and finally, finally embrace it.

I heard a wonderful sermon one time based on Isaiah 6:1. "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord ..." This sounds awful, but it's truth: sometimes the glory of God descending in our lives hinges on death. It doesn't need to be just the death of a loved one--it can be the death of our dreams or the death of our plans. My painful transition away from my mom (death of my wants) opened the door for more visits from my brother, more spiritual encouragement from my brother, from him to whom my mother would lend a listening ear. Wow. God does all things well.

So why was my brother begging me not "to do this to him"? Though we had commiserated over our shared history of emotional "owies" many times, I had never talked with him about how I had forgiven Mom. I was able to put his mind at rest. He wouldn't have to be biting his nails at my death bed wondering if the sin of unforgiveness would bar my entry into the pearly gates.

And you, dear friend? Is there someone or something that is like the fabled albatross hanging around your neck, dragging you down? If you don't have it in you to forgive, lay it before the Lord. Not only does He love transparency, He loves to help. And, He is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). Just as He helped me, just as I know He helped my precious mom, He will help you. Go for it. I promise you, your life will be all the richer for it.

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:32).

"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).