Forgiveness is…..hard.

It is strictly a unilateral decision. And it’s not a feeling. It’s a verb…..a conscious choice that we either do or we don’t. And those deep wounds…well, they are hard to forgive because they take forever to heal. They break open constantly and everywhere you turn, if it’s not actively bleeding, it’s being rubbed raw by a memory or a trigger. You can’t seem to win or get ahead.

This passage above from Genesis is about Joseph. Coat of many colors, Joseph. Let me catch you up if you are new Bible study. His story is great, but long, and there is SO much content here, that will be other blogs for sure. He had 11 brothers. He and his youngest brother had the same mother, whom their father favored and, therefore, he favored them. So the other 9 brothers resented Joseph. He had prophetic dreams and his father gave him the famous gift of the colorful coat. Long story short- try to keep up, read faster lol!… one day the brothers took off the cloak, threw Joseph in a pit to leave him for dead but then decided to sell him into slavery. They took the coat, covered it in blood and told their father he was attacked and killed. Meanwhile, Joseph is sold as a slave in Egypt, eventually ends up as a servant to a man named Potipher, whose wife thinks he’s hot and tries to seduce him. When Joseph says no, she takes his coat and accuses him of rape and he’s thrown in prison. He is in prison for 2 years, when the Pharaoh gets word that this slave in prison can interpret dreams. He then interprets a dream for Pharaoh and is released. Later, he ends up serving as 2nd in command to Pharaoh. Because of one of his earlier dreams that a famine was coming, Egypt had enough food stored to not only feed their own, but to sell to neighboring lands. So here come Joseph’s brothers to buy grain…. They don’t recognize him, it’s been 22 years, and Joseph is fully immersed in Egyptian culture.

What do you think is going through Joseph’s mind? The author of the text doesn’t ever say, although we know he is overcome with emotion several times during the story because he leaves the room to weep twice. A lot of interpretation of this passage makes Joseph out to be the patron saint of forgiveness and good intentions, but I am unsure of that. I have zero doubt of the content of his character based on the description of his life, but maybe the writers of these expositions haven’t ever been betrayed and deeply hurt to see it the way I do? Maybe the way you do? He recognizes them and does NOT immediately reveal himself and offer grain to ease their suffering. He accuses them of being spies which is punishable by death. The only reason he didn’t send them straight to the gallows was because he wanted information about his younger brother Benjamin and his father, neither of whom were with them. He quickly devises a plan where he might be reunited with the 2 people he loves and misses by using the other brothers. But he puts them in prison for 3 days first. Probably so he can cool off. And think. Maybe a little revenge, some ‘I told you so, you are getting what you deserve….’ I REALLY wish there was commentary on Joseph’s thoughts during these 3 days. Mine would go something like this….

They don’t deserve to live, because they tried to kill me…….. But God says vengeance is His and He can do it better than I can.

They deserve to rot in there, like I rotted as a slave, and rotted in prison because of them……. But God has blessed me in ways I cannot explain in other parts of my life and I can’t return hate for hate.

They deserve to feel what it is like to be betrayed by someone who is supposed to love you……But God has loved me and I am to love others.

The yin and yang of the thoughts that run through my mind at any given moment, especially when I am sitting in the deepest points of sorrow, are no different than yours. And are certainly no different than Joseph’s were. We are human. God made us, so He knows.

During those 3 days, Joseph had decisions to make. Would he forgive? I am sure he thought he had already forgiven them over the course of 22 years, especially when things were good, but now he was face to face with it. Are you in those 3 days? I am. Trying so hard to forgive. I want to, I really do. Ultimately, Joseph does forgive, releases them, and derives a plan to reunite them all. It’s a great story of redemption that I will write about someday. Just not today.

Forgiveness is HARD. It’s legit hard work.

Joby, the pastor from Eleven22, has preached the best sermon I’ve ever heard on forgiveness. I’ll leave the link below. He says we don’t forgive because we don’t trust God to be the judge. Also, we believe that if we forgive, they get away with it. That is 100% true. He says not forgiving is like “trying to kill rats by you taking the rat poison, it never ever works!” He encourages us to create a Debt Ledger where we acknowledge who hurt us, exactly what was taken from us, and what feelings are associated with it. Then DO SOMETHING with it. Burn it, bury it, something. So that every time the enemy reminds us of those things, we can say “no, they don’t owe me that anymore.” I heard that sermon in October and today, I am writing to you from a hotel room in Portugal, with one of my best friends, who also has some things to forgive. And we have some plans for that debt ledger while we are here. We did the hard work. I came to realize that I was already doing “hard” by living with unforgiveness. And I don’t want to eat the rat poison anymore.

Forgiveness is HARD. It’s legit hard work. And it takes time.

I also realized that forgiveness can’t wait for healing. I think I have been waiting for the bleeding to stop to be ready to forgive. Like, ‘when I feel all better, then I can forgive. Until then you don’t deserve it.’ But maybe that’s backward. Maybe healing is in forgiveness? Or a part of it? In Mark 2, Jesus forgives the man of his sins before he tells him to get up and walk. And I am ready to get up and walk! Are you? If so, listen to the linked message and make your debt ledger. And lets leave the poison for the rats…

I have this amazing friend who keeps telling me, at least once a week, “Girl, the rest of your life is gonna be a Hallmark movie.  God has something for you!”   You know what my response always is?  “Yeah, but I have to be ok with it if He doesn’t, right?”   But the real conversation in my head goes something like this…“Oh God probably has something for me but it can’t be good.   It never is. But it really would be nice to have something good for walking through all this shit for so long….in my bare feet…..up hill…. all the way to school…like something?? Consolation prize?     I can’t be the only one who has this internal monologue?? Do you?? I know that I don’t deserve anything from God and would never demand it. But for the love of all things Holy, can You make it stop????

If we pick up where we left off last week, Jesus has arrived 4 days since Lazarus has passed and Martha greets Jesus with a “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”  100% true statement.  

Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again.” At this point, Martha says ‘yeah I know he will in the last day.’ She is referring to His previous teachings about eternal life for all those who believe in Him (John 3:15–16; 6:39–40).   And Jesus reiterates this teaching by repeating it to her, then asks if she believes, which she does.  

I believe Martha had reverence when she answered “I know Lazarus will rise again.”  But I am not really at that place.  I’m a bit skeptical.   So my response to “Your brother will rise again.” Or “It’s coming, your blessing is around the corner” is more like, (insert eye roll) “yeah, yeah, I know what awaits me on the other side. In fact, we could go there now?  How about yesterday?”   Are good things here guaranteed?  Is God good? I have experienced so many deep wounds that pain has become an expectation. 

Do you sometimes feel like you have a bullseye on your back? I might as well have been a matador.  “Here ya go, here is your red towel, now please just stand right here.”  Stabbed through the heart every.single.time. Always standing in THE PLACE I thought I was called to be.  Well now what? Blood is still pouring out. I am severely anemic, and in need a real trust transfusion.  

The only place I can go for that transfusion is the Word of God. 

There are several verses that we seem to give people when they are suffering that are out of context. Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11. ( I will 100% crush these verses for you in another blog but you’ll actually understand them and love them more, I promise!). These verses are NOT saying what we want them to, which is “everything will work out fine and God only has amazing things in my future.” Unfortunately, reading these without the rest of the chapter gives false hope and expectations and leaves us in despair. I.e. where I am, forcing me to actually study and seek Him.

However, there is one verse that I keep tucking in my heart that another amazing friend, who has been to the depths of hell and back, keeps quoting. “I know I will see the goodness of God in the Land of the Living”.  Ps 27:13 This psalm begins with David expressing deep confidence in God, then pleading for protection, then celebrating God’s goodness. God not only provided rescue first-hand, but David later received the promises from God for rest and a lasting heritage (1 Samuel 16:13; 2 Samuel 7:11).

Circling back to Lazarus, Jesus asks Martha if she believes he is the Messiah.  And then He gives her the gift of her brother’s life, in the land of the living, without waiting until heaven.  

Which He told the disciples He was going to do beforehand, although Martha didn’t know that.   “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe” John 11:14. So maybe my Hallmark friend has been told something….

It was in Martha’s belief in the Messiah and in David’s confidence in God…..

At my core, while I wrestle with all these doubts, I do believe He is the son of God. According to this passage, that is enough.  So I can’t explain why that wasn’t the catalyst to answering my sobbed filled prayers but it does give me hope that God has goodness for me. Here, like, before I die. And honestly, I want answers to these questions about God’s character more than I want explanations about why I have suffered…why you have suffered. Tonight, I am praying for God to start the trust transfusion and nestle close to us and remind us He is good even when our circumstances don’t show it. May our matador-ian hearts rest by having the confidence that the “good” thing He didn’t give us, and hasn’t provided yet, is so that He can give us something better!  

Disclaimer: Many of you know my story. Many of you don’t. I have been quiet about the darkness I am walking through, abandoning this blog for years. Mostly because this blog, at one time, had several thousand followers, and part of me was embarrassed, the other half was afraid to share because I don’t want to hurt people nor anyone to question my motives. But God has been all over me to write. Whether it is just for my own personal healing because I suck at journaling other than in this form, or because someone else out there needs to read my struggles to help their own journey of faith, I do not know. But I have decided to do whatever it takes to seek Him during this time and do what He is asking, and let God handle the rest…. _{(About the author- https://abitofsoapandwater.com/disclaimer/)}

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days…many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.  Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” (John 11:17-22)

Lord, If you would have been here, my brother would not have died….

It had been 4 days since her brother’s death. But it had been 2 days before that since Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick. “So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was”. (John 11:8) So at least 2 days….likely more, as it would have taken time to get the message to Jesus, waiting on the One to come whom she KNEW had the power to stop death.

Lord, if you would have just been here.

Is that where you are? It’s where I am. And have been here for a really, really long time. I have been in the “2 days” of waiting a lot longer than the ”4 days” post death. Standing with my heart, and what feels like my very soul, shattered in a million pieces, holding them up to God, saying, “Lord, I know you have the power in just your breath to breathe the world into existence, why didn’t you come help me?” There were glimmers of hope, “days” where I thought He had, only to have it come crashing down on me harder than before. “Days” so full of hope and forward future thinking that I just knew I was seeing the power of restoration first hand and had a front row seat to resurrection…..but it wasn’t. It wasn’t real. How incredibly disappointing….how frustrating…..how faith stripping…..hope deferring. Yet I hung on and on.

But now I am in the “4 days” post death wondering where was God in all this? Maybe you are too. In these “4 days”, I am trying to let God piece back together the fragments of my broken heart and trying to figure out what was ever truth in the first place. This period of time has been marked with a lot of crying out to God for answers and reasons that I haven’t gotten yet. Martha had those same questions. Why didn’t You come? Surely Lazarus dying wasn’t in Your will? Why would you let this happen?

I have the same questions. Do you? I believed, as Martha did, that God could and would intervene, because I had seen Him do it before, several times in fact, as she had. I had way more faith than a mustard seed. Mine could move mountains. And yet, it did not move this one.

How do you trust a God who doesn’t answer a basic prayer that seems to align with His word? Martha was asking for life for her brother, whom Jesus LOVED, and he was His friend. Jesus IS life! How do you trust a God who allows a child to die that you prayed so hard to conceive in the first place? How do you trust a God who doesn’t restore a covenant of marriage, that was His gift to begin with, when He is a covenant? How do you trust a God who allows you to lose the job that was an answered prayer?

I don’t know these answers yet. But I know, that I know, that I know, He is taking me on a journey in 2025 about TRUST. It started in late 2024 with some peculiar things that I would like to share with you. Would you go on this journey with me? I can’t promise answers we like, or even to find all the answers this year, but I do know one thing that I can trust. God has never let me go down a bible rabbit hole of seeking Him that He didn’t show me something! I am going to pray like crazy for all of us, even if you aren’t on a trust journey, for God to show up in unimaginable ways. I am still holding out hope that He knows what He’s doing. Would you come along side me? He has promised if we seek Him, we will find Him. (Jer 29:13).