If you too are of an age where you attend more funerals than weddings you will know the mixture of grief and celebration that unites people.
There is a lot of hugging, wiping of eyes, laughter, memories shared. Friendships are renewed. Family connections are updated.
As one person said, “It takes a good funeral to bring life to a family”.
I think most of us agreed; but a “good” funeral is not always the case. Every now and then we attend a funeral marked by division. These carry another kind of grief, the sort concerned with wounds that haven’t healed.
This doesn’t happen often, but when it does we are aware of family members sitting in different parts of the church, deaf and blind to each other.
If we could tap into their silence, we might find separation was caused by something that happened a long time ago. The original wound might have been quite small, but it has enlarged with lack of forgiveness.
One of the most difficult burdens to carry is lack of forgiveness.
We all have that problem. We don’t forgive others and we don’t forgive ourselves.
This darkness is very heavy, and it weighs us down. We know it is partly caused by our judgemental attitudes, but even that knowledge is a judgement and it doesn’t help.
Lack of forgiveness can become a major blockage.
For me, the only thing that works is to lay that dark weight at the foot of the cross and hear Jesus, the great healer, say “Father forgive them. They know not what they do”.
That is so true. Much of the grievance I’ve carried has come out of someone’s ignorance, haste, a mistaken sense of duty, and the same can be said of the hurt I’ve inflicted on other people.
In fact, if we look at the evil in the world, we see it caused by people who believe they are absolutely right.
Experience teaches us that the fruits of suffering are wisdom and compassion. For some of us, the hurt we’ve received from others has caused major disruption in our lives and we don’t know how to move on.
Forgiveness is not simple. We peel back the burden layer by layer. It takes time.
When at last we can go to the cross in prayer to completely forgive, we discover the freedom of forgiveness. The dark burden dissolves in the light.
What a relief that is!
Not only do we find freedom in that light. We also find wisdom and love and they, in turn, make very good lenses through which to see the world as God made it.
- Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.