Email 
Bookmark 
Print Redeeming Regret: A Journey to Forgiveness
by Sandra Bishop
Our former class president stood at the head of the blue and white festooned banquet hall ringing out numbers like a bingo caller. “One?” Nearly every hand in the room swooped into the air. “Two?” Several hands lowered and eyes scanned the linen covered tables looking for remaining qualifiers. “Three?” Bodies rustled while everyone in the room strained to see the winner.
It was me.
I glared at my husband who was holding my arm high. I hadn’t won for traveling the longest distance to attend the reunion, nor for driving the same car as twenty years before. I won the prize for having been married the most times.
I knew it wasn’t my husband’s intention to embarrass me. The simple truth is that the man will do anything to win a contest. And, knowing I’d never been secretive about my failed marriages, I was sure he thought it was all fun and games. Until someone got hurt. Brad tried to soften his blunder with a kiss, but I waved him away. I marched to the front of the room to collect my prize wearing the widest smile I could paste on my smoldering face.
“What did you win?” someone shouted from the crowded room. I reached into the gift bag and pulled out a DVD of the movie, Runaway Bride. The room exploded with laughter and applause.
The cheers from my classmates added a dash of bitterness to the “please-forgive-me” look I noticed on my husband’s face. I wasn’t angry with them for embarrassing me. I was angry at my father. He was the one, I decided, who deserved to take the blame for this humiliation – except, as usual, he wasn’t around to take the heat.
Looking for closure
The weeks following my reunion I was angry, ashamed and inconsolable. In spite of Brad’s best efforts and the beautiful late summer days, I constantly dwelled on my failures and regrets. Something needed to change. So, I came up with a plan. I decided it was time to get in touch with my father.
At Thanksgiving, I casually asked my Mom what she thought of the idea. She didn’t even hesitate.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea” she said. I felt her eyes on me, but didn’t look up. “Honey, why would you want to do that after all these years?”
I looked at my mother and realized I couldn’t tell her why without hurting her. I couldn’t tell her that my step-father had never adequately filled the role of “Dad” for me. How could I explain to her what I was really hoping for -- that if I contacted my real father, he’d greet me with an apology and be eager to receive the blame for my poor choices? I believed that if I could just bridge the canyon between us I’d be able to hand the shame of my past over to him – where, I had decided, it belonged. I couldn’t tell her that, so I told her that I thought he might like to know about his grandson. I promised her I wouldn’t get my hopes up. But it was too late for that.
I picked up the phone to call him a dozen times in the next two weeks, but hung up each time. What would I say when he answered? “Hi, Dad. You screwed up my life and I was hoping we could talk about it.” I sent him a Christmas card instead. In place of the bitter accusation I’d been forming since the reunion, I tucked in a photo of me and my son, and an invitation to call or write me back.
Winter concluded without a word from my father. Instead of the closure I’d promised myself his silence slowly ravaged my heart. The secret hope I’d tucked inside -- that meeting him would fill the hole in my heart and restore my soul -- melted away like Easter candy in my two-year-old’s hands.
Bargaining with God
I was slipping into a state of despair. My husband insisted I visit my doctor who casually prescribed an anti-depressant and told me I’d be feeling better in a few weeks. The medication helped me function better, but it didn’t remove the question that pressed on my heart. If my own father couldn’t love me, how could God?
One afternoon when I put my son down for his nap, I laid down next to him and wondered how anyone could deny their own child. I challenged God to give me some comfort, to somehow let me know that I was at least His child, if not my father’s. “I’ll even start going to church again,” I prayed—daring God to find me.
I found a nearby church and began attending faithfully. But the messages seemed to be meant for everyone else. By the time summer rolled around, I felt more alone than ever. God, I concluded was nowhere to be found. And, like my father, He wasn’t looking for me either.
A few weeks later I was sitting on my front steps watching my son play when my neighbor Elizabeth walked by and chirped a cheery “Hello.”
I noticed the bible under her arm. “On your way to church, huh?”
“Yes I am. Would you two like to join me?” She walked over to my son and let him pretend to run over her foot with his plastic mower. They exchanged coy smiles.
“No thanks. I’ve tried church. I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Church is for everyone. For anyone.” She persisted gently, in spite of my negativity “You should give ours a try before you give up. I think our pastor was truly sent from heaven.” The twinkle in her eye convinced me it might be true.
“Maybe next week,” I told her, thinking a little bit of heaven sounded pretty good.
The following week I sat next to Elizabeth while the pastor’s words applied to my life like a healing balm. I went again and again, for months sitting in the same spot, occasionally weeping tears of release. Later that summer, almost a year from my reunion incident and failed attempt to reunite with my father, I attended a regional women’s retreat where a well loved local author was scheduled to keynote.
Asking the right question
The first evening of the retreat, the speaker opened her bible to the book of John and read how Jesus was “moved in spirit and troubled” about the death of his beloved friend, Lazarus. I was entranced by her introduction into this story, and eager to hear more about this sorrowful side of Jesus I’d never before considered. But, too soon, the evening ended. We would have to wait ‘til the next evening for more.
At breakfast the next morning I ran into my friend, Eva, who’d I’d lost track of years before. Eva had always been someone I could count on during the toughest of times to pray for me.
“It’s good to see you,” she told me. While we briefly updated each other on our lives, it didn’t surprise me to learn she was on the prayer team for the retreat.
“I’m sitting right up front,” she said. “Why don’t you join me there tonight and we’ll catch up some more?” I said I would and we parted ways to attend our day’s chosen workshops.
Evening came. I found a seat next to Eva in the main forum, and waited on the edge of my seat to hear the rest of the message. This time, the speaker’s teenage daughter was onstage, accompanying scripture readings with the graceful moves of her interpretive ballet. Mother and daughter wove the message together like a seamless garment, reintroducing the story of Lazarus and continuing until the verse where Martha confessed her sorrow and confusion from her position at the feet of Jesus.
"Lord,” she said, “if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."
I swallowed hard, hearing my own voice in Martha’s “if only”. I could feel the burden of the bulky bag which the dancer swung symbolically onto her back. My conscience, and the dancer’s slim figure buckled under its weight.
“But, Jesus, who saw Martha’s weeping, did not rebuke her question,” the speaker explained. “Instead, he answered her heartache with a grief filled question of his own, asking them, ‘Where have you laid him?”
“And then,” she reminded us, “Jesus wept.”
I listened carefully as she encouraged us to consider that in response to his disciples’ pleading for a miracle, Jesus could have moved the stone aside himself. He could have delivered Lazarus back to his family completely healed and without their help.
But He didn’t.
He asked them to take away the stone. Jesus reminded them to have faith, and the disciples obeyed, taking away the stone. And then, at His command, out came Lazarus, wrapped in the grave cloths that bound him to the evidence of his death.
“Now,” Jesus told them, “take off the grave clothes,”—the dancer set down her load – “and,” – the speaker whispered the three final words of Jesus’ command—“Let him go.”
I dropped my face into my hands, realizing my quest for my father’s unreturned love had led me here. To this place where I heard God’s answer to my plea, couched to me in this gentle command. I needed to find release from the heartache to which I’d bound myself. I needed to participate in the miracle I was asking God to perform on my behalf. But how?
God showed me that His solution was the only one that would make a difference in my life, and His answer was the simplest way. Not easy, but simple. Just like Martha, the dead man’s sister, I was suddenly petrified to follow through and release the man I had held captive in my heart all my days. What would happen then?
Stepping into my miracle
As the session came to a close, I sat, glued to my seat, shocked at my honest question, unsure what to do next. “Oh, God,” I buried my face in my hands, “If I forgive him, who will I have to blame but myself for my ragged past?”
“Are you okay?” Eva’s gentle interruption startled me.
I sniffed back tears and answered her in a meek voice. “I’m not sure. I think I need to forgive my father.”
“Well,” she said, offering me her hand, “lets do that, then.”
I could have easily waved her off, and let the moment slip away. But, Eva knew better. She kept hold of my hand and led me outside to a quiet place where I spilled my story to her. She prayed first, asking God for His grace, then urged me to do the same. I took a deep breath and began.
“Lord, I don’t understand why you’re asking me to do this, but I want to. I do. I want to forgive my father for abandoning me, but … ” Eva squeezed my hand while I hesitated, “the truth is, I really don’t think he deserves it.”
The honesty with which I spoke was returned to me with such truthful yet tender conviction I trembled at the rebuke God delivered directly to my stubborn soul. He spoke to my heart asking,
“Did you deserve it? Who are you to hoard and hide my most lavish gift? Do you think I wanted you to keep it all for yourself, tucked away in the dark alongside all those festering thoughts of blame and bitterness?”
The tears I’d been fighting flowed along with my confession and, finally, contrite prayer. “I’m no one to deserve your forgiveness. I’m so sorry. All this time I should have been looking to you for life and extending your grace. Please forgive me. And forgive my father. I don’t know what is in his heart and it’s not my place to judge him. Please have mercy on me. And on him. I do forgive him, Lord. I do.”
I took a cleansing breath, then continued boldly with another request. “Please Lord, one more thing? Help me lay down the burden of rejection I’ve carried all my life. Heal me, Lord, as I know only you can.”
“There,” Eva said, hugging me, “doesn’t that feel better?”
It did. I felt spent, but free. I’d laid down my own black bag and from that moment, I’ve refused to pick it back up again.
Years later, God is still working on unraveling the knots in my heart and shining light into the dark places. Sometimes I have to work extra hard to accept His affection. But, I constantly thank Him for the way He taught me that forgiveness is the most precious gift we can ever receive. And that extending it is even more divine.
So now, whenever I am tempted to nurture self-pity, regret or shame, I stop and remember the moment God invited me to step inside the miracle I had prayed for. And I raise my face to Him and know that God, my Abba-Father, will always answer me when I call.
If you have struggled with bitterness or shame, be encouraged that God doesn’t ask us to go it alone. Come to Him with your fears and hesitations. Ask for His Spirit to give you the strength to put down your burden and not pick it up again.
God wants to be our leverage in living, empowering us to live as He has told us to live. Do you need more of God in your life as you work through issues in your past? Ask God to come alongside you as you seek to serve Him. Ask for His Spirit to bring out the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Why not pray this simple prayer and by faith invite Him to fill you with His Spirit:
"Dear Father,
I need you. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you by directing my own life. I thank you that You have forgiven my sins through Christ's death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life.
Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your word that You would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus. As an expression of my faith, I thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen."
