Boldly and Courageously Speaking. The Fight (Part 2)

Forgiveness. This is one intricate word that I have been trying to wrap my brain around for quite some time. Growing up I was told to forgive and forget. For most of my life I thought that I was a terrible person for not being able to forget some of the terrible deeds people had done to me. In turn I would feel guilty because, I could never master the act of forgiving.

It was actually this past year, after a roller coaster ride of events that I learned the true definition of forgiveness. I learned it as I was going to see a new councilor after moving down here to Georgia. I wasn't to thrilled to be going because, I personally don't genuinely like councilors. This one though knew exactly what she was doing. After spilling my angry and frustrated guts one day, I asked her how I was ever supposed to forgive the people that hurt me if I could never forget what they did to me.

She asked me one question. "Why do you think that you have to forget?" It had never once in my entire life crossed my mind that I would not have to forget. This was a revolutionary thought. She than went on to say that forgiving people means that we don't expect them to do anything for us. We don't expect them to apologize. We don't expect them to "make it up" in any way. We just let them and their problems go. This also means that we have to let go of the hurt and pain that they caused. Which is not something that just miraculously happens over night. It takes time and forgiving that person again and again. I asked her if I would ever be able to think about what people had done to me without my heart feeling like it was going to suffocate. She told me that yes someday I would be able to look back on my wound with no pain. As long as I truly am letting go of what that person/people did to wrong me. (This is one of the hardest things to do. It is possible though)

What does all this forgiveness stuff have to do with speaking boldly though? We all want/need acceptance. One thing that I have done plenty of, is stuff all my emotions and the things that people did to create those emotions down inside of me. Why? So that I could have a relationship with the people that hurt me. I love these people and I wanted acceptance from these people. I just hid myself so that these people would love and accept me back. It was than that I realized I wasn't happy with myself and my grudge against these people was growing. It was then that it hit me, part of forgiving them was to move past their little world. And part of moving past their little world was telling them why I was moving on.

It is not at all fair to a person when you just drop them right out of your life. There are still ex-friends of mine that I have no idea why we are not friends anymore. Part of it was probably because, they were to afraid to tell me why they didn't want to be my friend. Speaking up against or to people who have belittled us and swept us under the rug is one of the hardest things we will ever have to do. But it is forgiveness. Saying, I forgive you, but I don't agree with you because of x y and z, is freeing, not only to yourself but to the person/people you are talking to. That way they know either why you are not going to talk to them anymore or what you stand for and what you are going to continue to stand for even if they don't like it.

Lets quickly jump back to the story of Peter. We find him having a very bad night of fishing a few days after his friend Jesus had died. In the dawn light, as Peter and his friends are drawing nearer to the shore, a man on the beach yells to them to put their fishing nets on the other side of the boat because that's where all the fish are. Now I fish and if we haven't caught anything after a couple of hours it's pretty much just a sign that we probably aren't going to be catching anything for the rest of the day. But Peter and his friends have been out all night and have caught nothing at all; all I can figure is that they must have been so lost in their grief they just had nothing better to do. Next thing you know they threw their nets out of their boat on the opposite side. Well it didn't take very long before their net was so heavy with fish they were struggling to bring it into the boat. There is a moment while they are all there trying to haul this monster catch into the boat when Peter's friend John mutters, "It's the Lord!" Upon hearing this Peter jumps into the sea and swims to shore.

Upon making it to the beach he realizes that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead. Peter and Jesus eat breakfast together and while they are doing this Jesus asks Peter three times over, "Do you love me?" Each time Peter feels guilty and upset as he says, "Yes of course I do." Finally Jesus smiles and said, "Tend to my people." In this instant Peter knows he is forgiven. He knows he is trusted again. And he knows he is accepted. For Jesus to ask Peter this could not have been easy. To tell somebody that you forgive them after they have denied you three times over takes a ton of boldness and courage.

Oh and for the record the phrase forgive and forget only applies to God.

Boldly and Courageously Speaking. The Issue (Part 1)

Glossophobia is the issue, when it comes to speaking up to people or in front of people. Statistically 75% of people have glossophobia. Thankfully this actually isn't a permanent problem. It's just a choice.

Why do this many people have a fear of speaking up? Fear. Fear of what others will feel, think, do, or say because of what you stood up and said. When I was 4 years old my dad taught me the verse Hosea 6:3. We had all these magnificent motions to go along with the words. I loved saying this verse for my parents because, they would clap and cheer for me. One Sunday morning my dad was talking about this verse. Spontaneously he asked me, a little doe eyed 4 year old to come up and say my verse in front of 100 people. Having never said it to anybody but, my parents I was terrified. I remember staring into blank stares as I slowly with allot of help from my dad, said the simple 4 little lines. 

Starting at age 4 I was learning how to conquer the fear of speaking up. I moved through school being 100% fine with speaking in front of and to people. I was part of a speech competition where I moved to the finals. I went on missions trips where you have to speak to lots of people with lots of language barriers. Growing up as a pastors daughter meant that I would meet all kinds of people who I would have to be able to speak to without any fear. I was in plays. I had interviews. I had jobs. I'm not going to lie and say that I was never nervous but, once I started talking all of that disappeared and I would remember why I wasn't afraid to speak. Of course at age 4 my mom did get a little upset with my dad for making me speak in front of lots of people and I got an apology. Although now I am totally glad that I was given that experience at age 4 instead of age 9 or 10. 

This past year I lost allot of things. Friends, family, home, jobs, sports, school. Pretty much everything that matters to a person was gone in one short summer. With the loss of everything came the fear of everything. Most of these fears have been replaced with peace now that I have had time to work through them. The other day I caught myself being afraid of speaking my mind. I realized that I don't want to lose anything that I have gained back. I started looking through my past year and realized that I have hidden parts of me that are important to me for the sake of acceptance and the feeling of comfort. 

I realized that once again my issue was fear. So I asked myself what's the worst that could happen, if I spoke about what is truly important to me? I realized my fear wasn't completely irrational. I could quite possibly lose friends, family, jobs, etc. I quickly asked myself another question. What will happen if I don't speak up about what is truly important to me? More fear, guilt, desperation, confidence issues. The list could go on and on and on. 

So like the homeschooled freak I am I talked to myself and told myself that I better figure out what I needed to do to fix this issue. There is a story about two men. One is the Ruler and Creator of everything and the other is an extremely close friend of his. The Creator tells his friend that he is going to die for him and that he is doing it out of love. His close friends gets frustrated and tells him no way is that happening, he would much rather die in his place. I can just see the Creator (Jesus) smirk at his friend (Peter) as he says. "Really?! You would die in my place?!" Since of course he knows everything I can just hear the pain as he tells Peter this. "Well guess what, you will not even acknowledge that you know me 3 times before tomorrow morning." He tells Peter this as they are eating dinner together. 

I honestly don't know how I would feel if my best friend told me that she was going to die for me because, she loved me so much and than the next thing she tells me is that I am going to deny our friendship not once but 3 times over for my own selfish sake. That would be painful. I know part of me would get this smart alec response going. I would probably take it as a bet and say something like. "Yah right. I bet I can make it till tomorrow morning without just completely dissing you once!" 

Sadly enough 5 chapters later in John 18 Peter completely denies Jesus 3 times over. He tells the people he is with that he doesn't even know the man. Peter is filled with shame and regret. He just denied that he even knew his closest friend. His friend that was about to go die for him. Why did he do it? He did it because, he was afraid for his own life, he wanted acceptance, he was grieving. There were allot of things stacked up against him. Why do we do it? I bet I could come up with a hundred excuses for why I don't speak my mind about hundreds of different issues. Excuses don't get us anywhere though because, we all always have a choice about everything that we do.

Plus there is this great thing called forgiveness....