Redemption

My stepfather, the only father I know, really, has suffered a massive stroke. There has been significant internal bleeding of the brain. The doctors feel that they have done all they can. He is on life support. The last time I saw him was one month ago today at his mother's funeral. The last time I talked to him was on my birthday. He called me. I was so happy to hear from him. And the last two times I've seen him, I was truly glad to be able to hug him tight and call him daddy.

I don't know when I forgave him. It snuck up on me...happened while I was doing something else, thinking something else. I saw him at my middle sister's graduation in Vermont last May and simply realized that I loved him. After all of everything, I loved him.

This relationship with my father is the most pointed living metaphor of Christ's forgiveness that I have experienced. And through it I understand, at last, what I've heard in countless sermons. Forgiveness is not saying that what was done does not matter, that it did not happen. It's certainly not saying that what happened is okay. It does take time. It is a long, aggressive process. I did not forgive my father by accident. I prayed through the emotional trauma of his mistakes. I prayed for God's help to see my father through His eyes. And in some quiet, unchronicled moment, the answer I'd been praying to, became the truth of the situation.

To forgive is to reinstate the guilty party to a place of relationship in some instances (though not possible in all), to willfully decide that you remove the burden from yourself of trying to exact payment for what was stolen. Mercy.

When I saw past my father's anger to his soul, when I understood that he was just a man who had been dogged by fear, his own father's rage, and a crippling sense of shame all of his life, I felt compassion for him. When it was clear to me that he was... is... truly penitent, I reopened my heart to him.

This forgiveness was just as much for me as it was for him. You cannot hold someone a prisoner in bitterness without also imprisoning yourself. My mother said it best when she told me that there was a point at which, after acknowledging just how badly she and my father messed things up that I would have to decide how the rest of my life will play out.

Okay. Yes. We were wrong. I messed up, he messed up, but now it's on you. Now what are you going to do....

This is probably the wisest counsel my mother has given me in the last 10 years. Now what was I going to do, indeed?

I decided that it was too easy to choose the old, worn path of unmitigated rage.

The prognosis is not good. All medical things being equal, my father will probably not live. But I am prepared to let him go, with tears, certainly, but mostly with love. Finally.