When you are a child forgiveness is more of a 10 second exchange that sounds something like this:

Mom- “Tell your brother/sister you are sorry.”

You-“Sorry...”

Brother/sister-“It’s Ok.” Then you go back to whatever you were doing.

That is a kid-to-kid apology which is nothing like true forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a BIG word, it’s a process, a multilayered daily act that goes far beyond an apology. An apology… the words “I’m sorry” even when the adverbs “so” or "very" precludes “sorry” then punctuated by an exclamation mark, are totally worthless. Devoid of meaning, the value is nil. It’s a grocery bag full of marshmallows when what you need is a refrigerator full of food… $5 for gas on a road trip when the price is $5 a gallon and you drive a behemoth SUV. Where do you even start when your emotional bank account, now overdrawn, yet your spouse wants to cash yet another check? The words, “It’s OK..” have no place in actual forgiveness.

“F-you jerk face! Go count the pennies in your own piggy bank (not the kids) and get a hotel room.  Better yet, go stay with one of your home wrecking floozies!”

“An affair you say?  I’LL SHOW YOU…where’s the credit card?”

“Oh, you really did it this time…just wait… I tell your boss, your parents, AND your best friend!”

I didn’t actually say or do any of these things, and truth-be-told the night he began to tell me about his affairs (it took over a week for him to get through most, but not all, of the ugly truth) also included a puking 7-year-old, so when he packed a bag and began heading out the door, I wouldn’t let him.  That’s correct, I actually stopped him in his lying cheating, floozie loving tracks. After all, why should he get off Scott-free when I was the actual parent sleeping on the floor next to the puking child, hoping to get the trashcan somewhere within range of the projectile vomit? More truth-be-told, his packed bag contained very little in the way of clothing, his seldom opened Bible, and his favorite hand-gun affectionately named “Bubba”  which actually had been my fathers. Although I wished the situation was not unfolding, and I wished he was not actually standing anywhere near me, I did not in fact wish him dead, well not by his own hand anyway. Now if he happened to be hit by a train while leaving town, or bitten by an alligator in our Charleston, SC neighborhood, so be it, but I never wished that he take his own life.  That was actually the first time I stopped him from killing himself, the second time was about 7 years later when he returned from a boots-on-the-ground tour in Iraq (yes, he was one of a select few Navy Officers to do so).

Back to forgiveness…where or how to even start?  The internet was pretty sparse at the time and believe it or not it wasn’t even on my radar as a place to start looking for resources.  I would need to go to an actual library or bookstore where there were actual books…on shelves…divided by categories.  “Is there even a category for stupid military wives that have been cheated on numerous times…?”  I just didn’t even know how to begin.

Go to our pastor? No way. I had a misguided sense that I had to protect his (my husband's) reputation.

It’s a good thing that my dad had already passed a few years before otherwise he would have done a reverse “Cannonball Run” straight to the east coast and killed his lying-cheating-floozie-loving-son-in-law. Oh, you don’t know what Cannonball Run is? No worries the internet can help you with that. And you may be thinking that I exaggerate just wee bit about my dad, I’m not.  My dad thought my ex-husband walked on water, that he hung the moon, and that he was the greatest thing to have ever happened to me, so if he were to find out that both he (my dad) and I had been made fool of, well that wise crackin’ former mortician father of mine would have flipped his proverbial lid and gathered all of his ammo and southern California street smarts (have you ever driven in LA?) and, well you fill in the blanks.

I prayed a lot, and by “a lot” I mean a lot of mumbo jumbo that only God himself could understand.  I read my Bible but I just couldn’t find the kind of hard core, straight shooting, plain spoken advise that I needed at the time. Like what do you actually do in this situation, where do you even start?  My mind was such a mess that I couldn’t make sense of it all.

Finally, I decided that I would forgive him, and by forgive what I really meant was that I would put my ring back on and pretend like none of this really happened so we could get back to normal. Normal with a dearth of trust. Normal with a still broken heart. Normal with the understanding that if he EVER cheated again, I would be G.O.N.E. No second chances, and no chance of him having any custody of MY children. Normal with the understanding that in God’s eyes I was free to go at any time because he is the one who cheated not me, and I could not and would not ever forget that fact. A tad self-righteous? Perhaps.

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Forgiveness

That’s the “elephant in the room.” That is a big word.  That’s a loaded word. Loaded not like “Bubba.”  Loaded more like a baked giant russet potato, split in half and doused in gravy then filled with bacon, shredded cheese, diced green onion, mushrooms, then sour cream, salt & pepper…well, you get the picture.  That potato is so big that you are sure you want to actually eat it but even with small bites you are sure it will be impossible to eat and soon you will need an extra-large to-go box.

Forgiveness

Where do you even start?  Your heart broken, your mind spinning, and the few people you talk to tell you to kick him to the curb. But what if what you are having to forgive isn’t a floozie loving soon to be former spouse?  What if that floozie loving soon to be former spouse isn’t the first or even the “biggest” thing you have to forgive?

Just like that baked potato, forgiveness can be a big chunk to try to swallow even when you have a pitcher of sweet tea standing by to help wash it down.  When there are family and friends standing by watching you to see if you can do it and cheering you on even when you feel like you just can’t.

Forgiveness

What would happen if I chose un-forgiveness?  What would happen if I just said, “NO!” I am not going to forgive the man who hit me with his car while I was riding my bike to school when I was in the 6^th grade.  What if I said, “NO!” I don’t care if he drives one of the church busses and will get a ticket and potentially lose his driver’s license. What if I say, “NO! I will NOT lie!” Even when the pastor’s wife who happens to be the school principal, tells me that I cannot tell anyone who hit me. What if I chose unforgiveness and carry this secret, this burden, for the remainder of my life?  That is a convoluted tale that even now I struggle with, because I had never really dealt with the forgiveness thing, and I did indeed do as told and I lied about it. I lied about it to everyone who asked because the wife of the pastor of a large church and school in Southern California told me to.  She only told me to lie, not to forgive. Read that again. She told me to lie not to forgive. I was 11 years old.

What if I chose un-forgiveness for the high school senior, at the school where I worked, who propped a door open one day, a Friday the 13^th, and with his shotgun, rounds of ammo strung across his chest Rambo Style, a machete, and three Molotov cocktails came into the school with the sole intention of killing the librarian as well as anyone who stood in his way? Forgiveness? That took a long time, not because I couldn’t or wouldn’t but because I had to process the actual reality that I had been in a school shooting. What if I couldn’t forgive…what if I chose unforgiveness instead?

 I now was a member of a rapidly growing club in the US and absolutely no one wanted to be a part of.  The school shooting survivors club.

Forgiveness...yep, that IS a big word.