The Journey of Forgiveness

In the last couple of years, I have been brought face-to-face with the cruelties that we can do to one another. I believe I have mentioned this before: I am not talking about the Bin Ladins of the world, I am talking about what we can do to each other every day in the course of our lives.

I am really not sure what the lesson here is for me. I remember a physician I worked with who behaved very cruelly to those who worked for him, but also to his patients. I tried to stop him. I reported his actions to the administrator. Unfortunately, the administrator (who is no longer in that position, btw) was afraid of confrontation so she never held this physician accountable for his actions.

I also have recounted the unjustified cruel treatment that I suffered at the hands of ICU nurses who basically had their "clique," to which I did not belong. And then of course, last but not least is the man who so cruelly hurt me by inexplicably leaving me, and then (as I found out yesterday), informed me that I had left him, conveniently forgetting the number of times I attempted to apologize to him.

So today I am wondering about forgiveness. Is it possible for me to forgive these people who hurt me so badly? I actually didn't realize how much I was hurt by my experiences in the ICU until I took a job at a clinic, and found that I was regularly having panic attacks and wanting to cry, because I was afraid that I would be threatened and/or falsely accused of something again.

I was raised in a Christian home, and although my beliefs have changed from being strictly Christian, I still consider myself a follower of Christ. As such, I believe that we are all sacred children of the Creator. So it is very difficult for me to reconcile these beliefs with the experiences that I have had lately.

I remember speaking to my mentor about the physician. I was thinking of the story of The Good Samaritan. I told him that if I came across the cruel physician lying beaten at the side of the road (or any of the wantonly cruel and cowardly people that I have encountered lately), it would be difficult for me to decide to stop and help. My mentor assured me that I would do the right thing in such a situation, but just the thought that I could hesitate to help someone who I believed to be cruel and unethical really made me think.

What if I can't, or don't want to, forgive these people for what they have done? Sometimes I think that forgiving someone is like condoning what they did, and I certainly do not want to condone the cruel behavior that I have encountered lately.

But I also know that forgiveness is far more than complicity. I realize that forgiveness does not include condoning evil or cruelty. Rather, it is knowing that I can be whoever I want to be in the face of it, and I can learn to rise above it and not be at the effect of it. This is a very difficult process, and part of the process involves being willing to look at ways in which I have hurt people, as well as accepting the fact that there will be, at least in the near future, people who will be dishonest, self-serving and cruel. And if I truly think I can't forgive someone, I can turn the situation over to Creator, and say that at this point in my life, I am unable to do what Christ has taught. Maybe I will forgive at some point in the future, when the pain has healed some more, and I am able to gather up what I have learned from those situations and grow wiser for the lessons.

I am somehow comforted by the fact that the things I have done in the last couple of years that invited so much pain into my life were done out of love: for my patients, for the people in the community that I worked with, and for the man who in the end, walked away.

I will end this post with excerpts from one of my favorite Biblical passages:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away...So faith, hope, love abide, but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13, 1-8,13