When an adult child who always seems to have things under control comes to your home and you immediately discern a weight is bearing down on his or her emotional health to the place where it is apparent to every casual observer, a parent always becomes duly concerned. I experienced this to a large degree with our daughter Pam several years ago.
Pam loved her job, was in a loving relationship with a nice guy, was in a city that she dearly loved. What could be wrong, I wondered when I noticed that she was in a depressed mood when she came 1500 miles home to visit?
I knew that she would share her burden with me, if need be, but I also knew that she needed to initiate the conversation because parents instinctively know whether or not to probe with the, "Are you all right," question that usually gets the, "Yes. Why? I'm all right," answer.
We did the usual things on her visit, ate at her favorite restaurants, fixed her favorite meals, went shopping. She visited with local friends, but still she wasn't her usual joyful, confident self.
The day before she left while we were watching a TV program I asked her how work was going. The emotional volcano erupted. She began to tell me about her supervisor at work, a woman who had become petty, domineering and abrasive to everyone in the office. Pam went on and on describing the negative atmosphere in the office and the abusive daily activities of her supervisor, who was making the lives of everyone in the office miserable.
I knew to let her go on and on, pouring out the frustration and helplessness she felt in the business situation, confessing that she dreaded going to work every morning, telling about her coworkers and their identical feelings toward the woman. It was apparent from Pam's description of the woman that she was controlling and bullying her staff.
As I listened to Pam talk, the word "forgiveness" kept coming to my mind. My logical, fleshly mind kept wanting to say that Pam should complain to the big boss, but my spiritual mind keep saying, "Forgive." How was I going to minister the truth of forgiveness to my precious daughter without sounding religious? Sometimes to religious people forgiveness means to suffer in silence, being taken as a wimp who lacks a good self image, suffering in silence. Yet I knew the truth behind the act of forgiveness, that it is not a weak thing but it is a powerfully strong activity that brings many benefits to the one who forgives.
I waited for an opening. After Pam ran out of her legitimate complaints I told her that there was a way out of the situation for her. She asked what I meant. I let the spiritual wisdom that can only come from God explain to her that she was so burdened and heavy hearted because she had been carrying around a 150 pound woman for months and months by letting thoughts of the woman's pettiness and cruelty and bullying occupy 100 percent of her own thought life. Pam admitted that the woman was all she could think about.
Then it was time to explain the Biblical principle of forgiveness, which is an act of releasing the person who has wronged you from your mind, thus releasing their hold upon you. I explained that God wants us to forgive other people because He loves us so much that he doesn't want us to obsess about being wronged to the point where our health, both mental and physical, are affected. He wants us to forgive petty people for our benefit, not for the benefit of the other person who had been cruel. He knows that holding a grudge will burn deep into our psyches and cause us to attract other depressing thoughts until we become ill, depressed and vengeful. Since forgiveness means to give forth, to release someone from our thought life, then we know that forgiveness is meant to lighten our load.
Pam was totally accepting of the spiritual truth about the power of forgiveness. We prayed a simple little prayer, allowing Pam to speak forgiveness for the supervisor and asking God to change the woman and the situation because it was no longer Pam's burden. Amen.
When we finished the short, simple prayer, Pam looked like a 10,000 pound weight had been lifted off of her. She was visibly changed, free from the weight of the 150 pound woman who had become a constant, heavy burden.
Pam gently wept with relief, saying that she was going to tell the other people at work about what we had discussed so they could be relieved of the depressing burden that they also had.
We never had to discuss the woman again after Pam went back, free as a bird, to her home. However, in a matter of a few months she called and said the woman had been transferred out of the department. Forgiveness (giving forth) in the act of releasing the supervisor left the woman free to be transferred. She was no longer bound to that department by the mental distress of her coworkers.
What a joy to know that everything in the instruction book, the Bible, is God's effort to help each one of us in our daily lives so that we can have a happy, joyful existence in the earth.
"Forgive and let go," is one of the greatest principles taught by Jesus. He was right on in his lesson on forgiveness. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw forgiveness lift a burden right off of my daughter and put it on God, who doesn't mind because he says He's a Big Guy and He can handle it.
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