I remember a dear friend saying with deep sorrow in his voice that it looked as if his father would die before they could ever have a chance to work through the agendas and hurts that stood blocking any meaningful relationship between them. His father died a few months later and I could not stop thinking of his fear and wondered how much the unfinished agendas added to his pain and hindered his grief journey.

The hardest things to get over are those hurts that cannot be expressed openly to the person who caused the hurt in the first place. If we can confront the problem head on and if the other person can acknowledge that they have caused us pain and are genuinely sorry for doing so, then we can forgive almost anything. If, on the other hand the person is not available, will not meet with us or refused to acknowledge any guilt then forgiveness is not a possibility. Forgiveness, real forgiveness is a two way deal. Someone must want to be forgiven and someone must want to forgive or it cannot really happen. God will not forgive someone until they ask Him to do so. Real honest forgiveness is a confrontation that leads to healing. Most of what we say is forgiveness is a shallow attempt to sweep it all under the rug or deeper into our hearts. 

If the other person is not willing or no longer there, then the issue becomes how do we get beyond the issue without the help of a confrontation that leads to healing? I cringe when I hear folks demand that someone just forgive and forget. Like there is some kind of switch inside of us that we can flip and the past is gone and all hurts forgotten. It just isn’t that easy.

Nice people aren’t the only ones who die, and all parents are not models for Leave It To Beaver. Some folks leave beautiful memories while others leave deep scars and pain. What do we do with those scars and that pain after they are gone and there is no way to confront or reconcile?

I am companioning a young man who has a huge load of unfinished agendas with his father. We are trying to work through a three pronged approach to getting past the pain and finding some kind of peace. We will not be as successful as he would have been had he been able to confront and heal with his father face to face, but I think we can find a peace he can live with and a way to stop the issues from dominating his life.

First: Find a safe person and a safe place. I cannot be his father but I can be a safe place for him to tell his story and be understood. There is something powerful about an understanding ear. I do not tell him how he should feel, or how he should have reacted to his father. I do not explain away the issues or the hurt. I just listen and try to understand how he feels and why he feels the way he does. After a session or so he said he felt like a huge load had been lifted off of him and he was beginning to feel free. Safe and understanding people are hard to find but well worth the search. 

Second: Shout it out. It was like I had lanced a boil that had been festering for years. Once he began to say what he was feeling, the anger began pouring out and he seemed to get madder and madder instead of calmer and calmer. It actually does get worse before it gets better. The well has been tapped and the stream increases for a while and then begins to wind down. 

Third: Decide to get well. There comes a time when we must decide to get well. Over time we learn to use the pain as a justification for a lot of things in our lives and our behavior: “Its no wonder I drink, my old man was..." Getting well means getting ready to move past those very comfortable justifications and be responsible for who and what we are. One writer said, “For what I am today, shame on my parents. If I stay that way, shame on me.” 

In the case of my friend, after listening to him for several sessions and letting him vent whatever anger he could. I asked him how long he intended to let his father continue to do him harm? I told him about the man who bought his newspaper each day from a newsstand whose owner was crude and insulting. When a friend ask the man why he bought his newspaper from such a crude and insulting person, he said “because I do not intend for him to determine where I buy my paper.” There comes a time when we have to say, “They aren’t going to determine how I feel or what I do any longer.” That is when we start getting past the unfinished agendas. 

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