I forgive you.

What’s fun about my brain is I can get obsessive thoughts pretty quickly if I don’t pay attention. My over-active brain likes to find a thought, a wound, a situation and get busy destroying it. I don’t enjoy this part of my brain. I don’t encourage it. It just happens.

I forgive you.

I don’t start off the day mad. Well, let’s be honest. Sometimes I do. I wake up with a clenched jaw. I have to remind myself to unclench as I’m waking up. I don’t know what my brain was handling as I slept, but often I can feel the effects of it in my jaw and neck, in my shoulders and forehead.

I forgive you.

I take deep breaths and lower my shoulders. I don’t want to assume the posture of fight all the time. I don’t want that for my life, I don’t want that for my family, I don’t want it for my body. But it assumes the position every single morning of my life.

So I begin my day by unclenching and breathing.

I forgive you.

But my brain starts again: remember that conversation you didn’t get to finish? Remember that person who hurt you and never apologized? Remember that lie someone told about you to make themselves look better? You should worry about that right now.

I forgive you.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my thoughts. Please read that stupid sentence again. It’s true. I don’t know how else to tell you. I spend a lot of time thinking about my thoughts.

I forgive you.

There are perks to thinking about your thoughts a lot. I get to write reflectively and people read it. I get to learn from something I thought or did or believed that wasn’t right. I get to see outside of myself often. I am self-aware. I am quick at self-correction. These are good things, things that have brought health and healing to my life.

I forgive you.

But there are downfalls too. If my brain doesn’t get the resolution it wants, it can’t stop running circles around it. It can’t stop bringing it back. My brain doesn’t file it away for later, it screams for attention and energy. This is exhausting for my brain which, in turn, makes it exhausting for me.

I forgive you.

I think about a way to share all your secrets. Destroy you. Show everyone what you’ve been hiding, what you hid, how dangerous you are. Make the lies you’ve built your life around crumble. How you made me the bad guy. My brain really likes justice. I know too much, that’s why you worked so hard to control the narrative. You who has so many secrets, scared of someone who has very little of them.

I forgive you.

Maybe I like to read so much because my brain gets a break from other thoughts for a while. You can’t read a book–really read and absorb a book–without quieting other parts of yourself. I love words. Maybe I love other people’s words because they make mine stop for a while.

I forgive you.

I love resolution. My brain needs an ending. Last fall my sister accused me of always needing to get the last word. I turned that label over for a long time. Do I need the last word? Do I have to say one more thing every single time?

I forgive you.

It’s not the last word that I love. It’s the resolution. I can’t stop the conversation, the argument, the misunderstanding until it’s fixed. I don’t want the last word, I want the resolution. If your words end up being last, as long as we’re reached a conclusion, I don’t need more words. I need resolution.

I forgive you.

It’s not pride. It’s not believing I know all the right answers. It’s the lack of ending. If we don’t figure out how to move forward from this, we don’t get to move forward. I love to move forward. Because the opposite of moving forward is staying stuck and that feels like death. It feels like being trapped and dying.

I forgive you.

I have a lifetime of silence instead of resolution. I have a playbook full of resentment and secrets and manipulation. I had to unlearn my lessons of ignoring and pretending. My brain doesn’t know how to live in the tension of other people choosing not to anymore.

I forgive you.

I’ve started whispering to my thoughts:
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.

It has begun a relaxing of my shoulders and fists. I get to decide the cycle my brain gets trapped in. I want it to run the route of forgiveness not resolution. I like a tidy ending, but that is not always an option.

I forgive you.

I am training my brain to forgive whether my bones want to or not. I repeat it as a mantra, a prayer, a promise. I don’t want to carry your wounds with me forever. I don’t want to live in the scars of broken people trying to break others. I understand most of what has happened to me isn’t even about me.

I forgive you.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean I want more from you. It doesn’t mean I want a relationship, another conversation, a way back. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you were right, and I was wrong. Forgiveness isn’t an invitation to start again.

I forgive you.

It’s just a releasing. A loosening of my jaw, because I don’t want to live in the world carrying you anymore.

I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.

It becomes easier, the forgiving. I need it just as much as everyone else. I want it greedily so I’m sharing it freely. It’s not natural. It’s not automatic. It’s a practice, a choice, an action.

I forgive you.

I am retraining my brain to let go. To worry less about the resolution and more about the letting go. It is going against every single cell in my body. We all want revenge and “I told you so” and conclusions.

I forgive you.

The nice part about thinking about your thoughts all the time is I can quickly see an obsessive pattern starting.

I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.

I correct the thought. I stop it. I forgive it. I forgive the person. I forgive the situation. I forgive the lie. I forgive the event. I forgive the time. I forgive myself. I forgive my brain.

I forgive you.

When we say we follow Jesus, it means stepping in His footprints. It means going to the same places He went. And He always started with forgiveness. The women at the well. Zacchaeus. Peter before he denied Him. The very people who killed him.

I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.

If I don’t start there too, I’m missing something. I’m only following Jesus in name not action. Belief changes us. It changes our hearts, our words, our thoughts, our interactions. It becomes less about justifying and more about forgiving in spite of.

I forgive you.

Jesus forgave Peter before he betrayed Him. He forgave the woman at the well even without a promise to never, ever sin again. He forgave the very people who were taunting and stabbing and spitting on him.

I forgive you.

I don’t forgive because it didn’t hurt. I don’t forgive because I want you to do it again. I don’t forgive because I got the resolution.

I forgive because it’s too heavy to carry this anymore. I forgive because I need it too. I forgive because my body needs rest. I forgive because I am called to. I forgive because it’s dying to self. I forgive because I know enough about self to realize I can’t always be trusted, don’t always make the best choices.

I forgive you.

That’s it. No resolution. No want for more. No tidy ending. We don’t move forward. We go separately from here. Me, without the heaviness. You, without the power to do it again.

I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive myself.