How To Forgive Someone When You'd Rather Just Shoot Them

Thirteen and a half years ago marked the end of my second marriage. It ended in a blaze of glory, the likes of which I had not previously seen in my life, nor have I since. There were so many justifications for holding onto the anger, the hurt, the resentment, the abandonment, the fear, and I must admit, I tried to do that for several months afterward. In fact, those are the things from which I drew my strength to go on each day. (Picture Scarlett O'Hara on her knees shaking her fist at God in "Gone with the Wind".)

Thankfully, a very wise person entered my life and suggested I might find a healthier source of strength by praying for my ex-husband to be blessed with all the things I was striving for in my life: peace of mind, security, someone to love, someone to love me back, the means to support my family...happiness.

My initial reaction to this was absolute horror: How could she suggest I pray for that S.O.B. after all he had done to me and put me through? That required me to be a much bigger person than I was at the time. "No way, " I thought to myself, "No way I can pull that off, and more to the point, I don't even feel like trying."

Then she suggested that the degree to which I resisted the idea mirrored the degree to which I really needed to try it - not for his sake, but for my own. She told me to pray for him everyday for two weeks straight. She told me I would likely pray through gritted teeth the first several days, but promised a change would occur before the two weeks were up and I would be glad I had done it. "When donkeys fly," I thought to myself, but I agreed to do it (mostly just to shut her up, I'll be honest.)

Gritted teeth wasn't even the half of it! I remember starting out by asking God to forgive me because what I was about to ask for I didn't really want. The first few times I did it, I cried my way through it. I felt so betrayed being asked to do this. He didn't need my prayers - he'd gotten what he wanted. But I prayed, nonetheless.

I choked out those prayers each day and soon found myself praying for a change of heart that would allow me to really mean the prayers I was praying through all those tears. I prayed for him but I also found myself praying for the desire to forgive him. I didn't want to live the rest of my life being angry at him. I wanted peace and it was beginning to dawn on me that I had found the path to it. I didn't ask God to show me how to forgive him, I simply asked God to help me WANT to do it.

At the end of two weeks, I had only accomplished the desire to forgive, but it was worth it. I was no longer gritting my teeth. My wise friend smiled at this because she knew I was on my way. She told me to keep praying for him until I WAS able to forgive him, and this time I didn't balk. I didn't like it, still, but I didn't feel so betrayed anymore. I was beginning to see the benefit for me in all this: Peace. It took several months, but I did finally forgive him.

Forgiving him didn't change the past. It didn't make all the things he did "ok". Forgiving allowed me to let go of the past, to shake it's hold on me, to make room for the blessings I wanted to receive.

Best of all, forgiving him allows me to tell my son stories of his father without bitterness and resentment. I can answer questions without cringing or making my son feel bad for asking them. My son has never met his father, but he knows he can ask anything and I will answer him as honestly as I can. He knows that I know he loves me no less by asking about his father. THAT is worth everything I went through in the process of forgiving.