Yesterday’s post about forgiveness struck some nerves, most noticeably with my daughter who called me first thing this morning.

“I think you said it about right,” she started, “I don’t think I’m really that mad any longer… am I?

Then she launched into her anger regarding what was done to her baby brothers more than 20 years ago. This daughter of mine is extremely intelligent and so was her birth mom. I’ve met her and listened to my daughter and an older birth sister as they’ve regaled me with all the stories that have truly left me dumbfounded and wondering how any of them survived their early years. This other birth daughter never was adopted, she was married by the time I met the kids, yet she remain entangled with the birth mom bearing up under horrific stress and manipulations now for more than 30 something years.

I used the word ‘mistake’ in my last post, an understatement certainly. My family, being large, has quite a few birth mothers represented here and every story is different. One mom was mentally challenged, some were victims of generational family dysfunction, some were criminals, some were addicts, some had mental health diagnoses, and some just wanted to party without the kids.

It’s important now as I write to explain that I see the world through the eyes of an older, Southern Church of God parishioner, this colors all that I do, I believe it holds me to a standard that I always seem to be striving towards, and forgiveness is mandated. I’m not telling anyone else out there how to believe, I’m just writing about how I perceive forgiveness.

Forgiveness is seen as freeing someone, as Faith pointed out in her comments,

”I define forgiveness as choosing to stop nursing the bitterness and, instead, use that freed up energy to heal myself. This is a series of choices that happens over a period of time. It does not involve pardon or reconciliation, and the other person does not even have to know that this choice is taking place inside of myself. I see forgiveness as becoming indifferent to the other person. I no longer hate my abusers -- I am indifferent to them, which frees me.”

My daughter told me she especially liked those words as she still struggles mightily with this process.

John commented,

“Wouldn't it be more appropriate to try to get to the point that the child sees the abusive parents as people who could only do what they did. Not good, wonderful, or even OK people, but very limited people who were incapable of better judgment or behavior. Pity, yes, and forgiveness for their limitations and the damage they caused, not because they deserve it, but because the child needs to do that to heal.”

This is really on target. And for my children to attempt to emotionally remove themselves from this equation has also been liberating.

IMG1567 commented,

“While true forgiveness is liberating, it really does take a lot to get there. To say you forgive but to still obsess about the wrong done to you is counterproductive, yet is so easy to fall into. I don't know which is worse, children you cannot forgive their birth families, or ones who are in such denial over what happened that they idolize their birth family, that never seems to turn out well either.”

I’ve seen that denial here as well, but as the years go by and the child grows into an adult, he or she often begins to truly understand. Quite a few of my kids, half maybe, know where their birth parents are and have encountered them in one way or another. It has always resulted in a greater comprehension that the child was not at fault. Thank God they learn this, I know it has been a terrible struggle for them over the years and I see my children in adulthood often get slammed by a small event that they magnify into their rejection and abandonment issues. EVERYTHING seems to be a process here, a lifelong event, something that they and I talk about for years and years, I’m starting to wonder if eternity will be long enough for us to examine everything they way we seem to do.