Few months ago a reader challenged me to write this from a christian perspective. According to him I have written so much on separation/divorce and intimate partner violence a lot that it seems I am against forgiveness and reconciliation.
So I write in obedience, I pray flesh doesn’t own the ink.
For them that live more in a utopian world we may have thought of a reconciliation in one of those moments.
It happened a lot in my first year of separation, then the other person inside me kept saying “what if this jamaa heals from this nonsense, walks over and scoops me off my feet and whisper sweet nonsense to my ears, and just say “you know what, I am sorry for blablabla, it will never happen again” and you know, am also sorry haha.
Then I take them to my daddy and say “Daddy, daddy! What do you think?” In palpitation awaiting his verdict because he has good eyes, spiritual. My eyes and heart can be super fleshy. Yes, so that my heart ain’t swayed I would await verification in major ways. But It died along the way, as I kept healing and embracing more of it.
Onto the forgiveness subject.
Whether the end goal is a reconciliation or not, forgiveness is very important for either parties in a broken relationship. Duration matters not as long as one day it will happen.
You can choose forgiveness
Sometimes, God has a way in us, through us and for us and somehow we find ourselves in an atmosphere that doesn’t demand but oozes forgiveness without obligation.
The hurts and the pains that pleads and asks for forgiveness are sometimes beyond us, at such times we may choose to forgive ourselves first. Yes, forgiving ourselves even if we can’t explain it, thereafter we may consider forgiving them.
They too, having forgiven themselves, may open their doors to forgiving us. I say may. Hence I say, the duration may not matter but the intention.
In my journey I chose to forgive myself first, to be gracious with myself first before I lifted my gaze to the other person. It was/ has been very helpful, because if I am able to see myself gently with all the mistakes and choices I made, then I can do the same to the other person whether they ask for it or not. In most cases they won’t, in most cases our ego overshadows sense and we feel and think and believe we’re right but not so.
Sometimes, the hostility around a party can be so intense they can’t reach out to each other and it’s ok. So we deal with self, then heal from the hurts and pains, in the process we release them bit by bit as we keep peeling the onions. Marriage doesn’t just break you know.
Forgiveness is intimate, so personal it doesn’t have a formula.
But forgiveness is a command, an instruction from God. I knew this and have known this and I opened my heart for it, or rather I kept sitting under His feet so that He helps me to forgive because my flesh can’t do no such thing.
It becomes a journey of integrating my flesh, my spirit and my soul with God’s will; His word. My mind being renewed to agree with Him in matters of forgiveness, It’s not a rosy journey. It’s in phases but possible phases.
Forgiveness unravels, empties and shakes off our cores in such ways we can’t explain but the relief, the joy, the peace and the lightheartedness can’t be priced.
Forgiveness heals
Forgiveness has a way of boosting our health, clearing our lenses, unclogging our ears and setting us up for a whole different wholesome mindset.
Forgiveness steers us to living a purposeful life.
I choose forgiveness after a broken marriage.
Does forgiveness come with reconciliation?
Often than not, reconciliation has been paraded to the families in crisis – the divorced/separated without asking the statuses of their hearts when it comes to the subject of forgiveness.
Forgiveness heals the affected individual but reconciliation is for both parties. Therefore, the latter remains a choice, a decision but not an obligation.
In some cases also reconciliation is often to patch the family fabric as required by the society, community, yeah as required by the family. You see this patching will boost an image here and there. It will steady a title in this circle and that one. It will also reserve seats and positions. It will make children grow up right, so they say.
It’s about them but not for the purposes of God, about us raising healthy transformed families but conformed families who’ll keep leaking toxins to their deathbeds too afraid to say “hold it!” … ”I am still hurting. I need time!” They’re scared to hear the voice of the society “What about the children?”
You can’t reconcile for the children but you can forgive for the children to be parented by at least one whole or enroute to wholeness parents. Yes, Dr. Carol Chakua says, “children can thrive under one stable adult.” Stable is the keyword.
Why do you want reconciliation?
I would say that two healed individuals who’ve forgiven each other and are ready to stir up the fires of love that were long quenched can do it again. Love is such a beautiful thing, I wouldn’t say no to the man that knew me and I knew them at levels we only know. The man I sired children with, the man who now melts my heart, now so self aware, so healed I want to ask my Bishop to do the honors of asking us to do.
The man who sees beyond me, beyond what people see, he sees me as his ministry as I see him as my own ministry. The man who’s so submitted to God, there won’t be a struggle myself and him submitting to one another! It’s a whole reconciliation, no this is a whole marriage! Let’s do it again babe! Bring it on.
Forgive my hysteria, marriage tickles me in deep ways.
I mean to say that reconciliation between healed individuals is possible, but at the same time they can just remain two healed friends who grew beyond the marriage.
I have come to learn that after marriage, some individuals may spend so much time justifying themselves, others pointing fingers, others brooding and gathering resentment, others refusing to own up, others waiting for the other human to own up that before we know it, the other person has grown wings and flown past reconciliation.
And as people heal they attract who they are. Wholeness attracts wholeness; In this case they will be in their area of purposes living fully and wholesomely that if they want it, they’ll be found or they will find some. And in this case they will have reconciled themselves to God but not their ex spouses. And it’s ok.
Do you even know how getting into a relationship with a human who knows a grain about you is hard? Ok for me, this is the hardest thing because I am so routined, maybe spontaneous on other things but am the type that signs up to pledging loyalty and I can take a million years, haha. Like seriously, I can. It’s all hard work for me.
I pause to simmer over this scripture.
1st Corinthians 5:19-20 says: 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
In this scripture we see how God is pleased with forgiveness and reconciliation.If this applies to the church? It applies to God ordained marriages, it applies to persons – It’s him and her that makes the church.
How much more would it gladen His heart when families are reconciled. It’s a whole dance in heaven, a whole banquet.
I am a representative of God in my spheres and I am mandated to carry the gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation in every space, marriage being part of it.
Besides being a christian I come from a community that honors and believes in marriage in a huge way. Am not even sure if my family has gotten over the fact that, am no longer married. I know my mother prays and seeks God for me in this area. We don’t marry to leave, we marry to marry. I married for forever however the mistakes made into calling it a marriage.
Some marriages can be redeemed
Not all marriages are for dissolving, some can be redeemed but only if the parties are willing. God’s intention remains constant, same time He remains too gentle to push two adults to walk to Him broken to be patched and be purged by Him.
Unforgiveness is waaaay too burdensome to bear but reconciliation is a choice that an individual makes, they went through the marriage they know better. An individual who has forgiven her/himself, forgiven their ex spouses can not be held down to reconcile with them. It comes naturally and if both are willing. Marriage is for two, one party agreeing to reconciliation is not necessarily a ticket for the other party to say Yes. It can be worse than how it was. Two can only walk together if they agree.
Most cases people who were once married are too egoistic to say the words”I am sorry for 1,2,3” and would rather watch the marriage go down the drain.
Some are too self centered to see beyond themselves.
In conclusion, Forgiveness and Reconciliation is a possibility, at the same time it may not apply to everyone. And to the ones it doesn’t apply, they are still children of God loved dearly by Him. They’re in their journey of mind renewal and transformation albeit not for marriage reconciliation but for themselves and God.
Photos: Illustration pictures are from Pixabay.com