As June Hunt continues Chapter 9 of How to Forgive, she offers a reconciliation roadmap telling us what will be required for the journey as well as what healthy, appropriate reconciliation looks like. Ms. Hunt lists four provisions the offended need for the trip.
1. Genuine forgiveness. Ms. Hunt states reconciliation never will be successful unless your bag of bitterness has been thoroughly emptied. In other words, you have finished the process of complete forgiveness. Counselor Robert Enright describes why wholehearted forgiveness is necessary to support real reconciliation:
“Reconciliation without forgiveness is often no more than an armed truce in which each side patrols the demilitarized zone looking for incursions (a hostile entrance into a territory) by the other and waiting to resume hostilities.”
2. Humility. June writes that “righteous indignation” (aka ‘pride’) thwarts reconciliation. Any attempt to think of yourself as better than your wounder or offender is counterproductive. Ms. Hunt reminds us: “Even the most hurtful offenders are still just people who have, themselves, been hurt.”
3. A willingness to risk. Reconciliation takes the courage to be vulnerable, within reason. Setting boundaries is different from closing off the border with an emotional iron curtain. Reconciliation needs room to breathe and grow. In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis wrote:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable . . . . The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
4. Truth and love. June notes that we are called by our God to be “speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).” Love offers acceptance and mercy to the offender. Truth boldly faces reality and calls wrong wrong. As Ms. Hunt explains next, forgiveness does not equal enablement- implicitly condoning sin. Yet, this confusion is a sticking point for many people.
Today’s question: Which provisions on June’s reconciliation roadmap are most meaningful to you? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Forgiveness is not enablement”
