I started my wide journey to forgiveness a long time ago. I say journey because forgiveness, to me, isn't a one time stamp on a relationship that lasts forever. It's ongoing. You have to exercise forgiveness, stretch it out in the morning before your coffee. Shake it awake in your bones. Make it flex to your soul. Forgiveness is an invisible blanket that becomes your super human cape before you face the roughest moments of your life.
When I learned how my forgiveness shape shifts, I learned the power I could have. I stopped making an apology the prerequisite to my forgiveness. Anticipating and waiting on apologies made my forgiveness conditional and out of my control. And if the forgiveness was mine, shouldn't it have been in my control? What I never expected was an apology.
Last week one came. Out of the blue, in an honest moment of openness and tight window of vulnerability...I received an apology. One from a door I had closed. I wasn't shaken to my core, I didn't cry out of relief. I simply accepted it. It seemed flawless, almost in the way that you allow a stranger to hold the door open for you when your hands are full.
I didn't allow it to let me open the door again, but finally, I could lock it. I didn't have to tend to the monsters behind the door anymore. The pain wouldn't sneak up on me, because now, it could be locked away. I didn't realize that would be an option for me. I was so accustomed to tending to my pain, applying bandages to the wounds and letting them air out with a good cry. Suddenly, the wounds were gone and I felt...light. Like I had an extra pair of wings. Funny how God works.
You never really know how you'll move in life, if it'll be skips over stones or if you'll finally be able to fly. It wasn't the apology that gave me wings, but the active forgiveness that I had been practicing. By the time the apology came, I was already trained to fly.
The apology made the air under my wings more powerful, but without it, I would still be free.
I would still fly.
I will always fly.
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