With holiday season and the coming of the New Year, my spirit has been plagued with unrest. Several times my husband and I have tried to pin point the source of this unrest and the only thing I truly understood was that I am angry. This may not be a problem for many people but as a Christian I feel compelled to put this feeling to rest. Christ calls me to forgive as I have been forgiven. There is even a debate that unforgiveness can cause us to lose our eternal salvation… well I don’t know about all that but this is what I have discovered over the past few weeks of stress, tears, fits, sadness, and ultimately seeking God’s face.

I was confused and unnerved by the fact that the ones who I harbored unforgiveness against, truly had harmed me. Their offenses were damaging not only to me but to others. In my head I know that I have to forgive them but in my heart there is the lump of hurt that screams for something, some kind of resolution. Over and over I used the word “unresolved.” I can say: ‘I forgive them,’ with my mouth, but in my heart I feel… unresolved. So I deduced: if it looks like unforgiveness well then it probably unforgiveness. So how can I forgive and obtain that ever elusive resolution.

Hashing out the source of my angst last night with my husband, I told him yet again that I am struggling with the hurts he has brought on our family for, well, the past few years. Seeing as I have no plans to rid myself of him or make him pay, I needed so badly to find some resolution on the topic. “I’m just angry,” I said, “and I don’t know what to do with it.” I also poured out a list of others that I find myself hopelessly angry with. My husband wisely asked me to tell him just how angry I was. So he allowed me to pour out my anger and grief and despair. It must have been difficult to listen to that, but I think he was able to listen and rest in his own confidence of who he is in Christ.

This pouring out or confession was so helpful in revealing the true word I had been looking for. Somewhere inside of me, I needed there to be payment for the wrong that had been done to me and my children. There was this unspoken need for retribution. Some would call it propitiation or satisfaction of a debt. Although it was not a conscious thought in my head that my husband or the others who had wronged me should “pay” it was there in my spirit. So when I was using the word “unresolved” the word crying out in my spirit was “retribution.”

The comfort in having sought the scriptures for, well, my whole life, is that I have a lot of knowledge in my head, even if it is not really absorbed into my heart. So when the strategy of the enemy was to keep him plan of unforgiveness in my heart was brought into the light, the light of the truth of God’s word was easily able to shine on it.

Here is the truth: When someone sins against you, they are ultimately sinning against God. The pain I feel is a result of me or someone else stepping out of God’s plan. So truly that person’s debt is not to the person they harmed but to God. And God treats all sin the same. Usually when I experience unforgiveness toward others it is because I have a hard time accepting my own forgiveness. Robert McGee said in his book “The Search for Peace”: “if we hold on to unforgiveness, we cannot accept our “own” forgiveness. In fact, the only way we escape the torment of having unforgiveness is to begin to contemplate our own forgiveness until it has so impacted our lives that we are able to forgive from our heart.”

For years I viewed the forgiveness God gave me as him giving me a pardon or “wiping the slate clean.” But that is truly and unscriptural view of God and frankly “the” reason why I have been able to accept a true and complete forgiveness from God. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t follow the idea that God is a righteous. How can he just “overlook” my sins? Well the truth is that he doesn’t just “overlook” our sins. God is righteous and justice and for him to exist in that holiness there MUST be payment for sin. It is what we FEEL when we describe a “righteous” anger. We feel that this has been a true offense against out soul and God. The effects of which, destroy and deplete for generations. It is what I was feeling: the need for the payment.

The essential truth that is blocked by this partial truth in our spirit is that Christ has already made the payment for ALL sins: past, present, and future. This is a truth that needs to be put on ALL unforgiveness. Christ has paid for their sins, even if they are “not saved” and essentially “not walking in that forgiveness.” The payment was made for EVERYONE. The bible says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us;” which means that he died for us BEFORE we came to him.

So what was the thing that helped so much to burry my unforgiveness: First, I confessed my anger and unforgiveness. It didn’t look like: “Dear Lord, I am harboring unforgiveness in my heart…” No it looked like: “I am angry! I’m hurt and confused… You not only hurt me but you hurt our kids and you hurt yourself!” I think people have the wrong view of confession. Confession should be cleansing, not holding back anything in our heart. Now, beware, this is not something that you can do with “everyone.” In fact most people cannot handle this kind of confession. Do it before God or with a Godly friend or counselor.

Second the truth was able to wash away my “sin” of unforgiveness which not only hurts the one I am holding it against, it hurts my friends and family, because I am NOT a nice person when I have this anger in my heart. But mostly I hurt myself. I sin against myself. I cannot “accept my own forgiveness” in this state and it truly does torment me… The truth is that God did not just “wipe away” my sins, he looked at me and said: “You’re guilty and the punishment that is fitting for your crime is death.” And then he turned and took my punishment and placed it on Christ’s body and Christ was tortured and suffered death for me. For me and for everyone even those who do not yet (or may never) walk in that forgiveness. No one’s sin is greater than mine, because God looks at all sin the same way. So that person who harmed me deserves forgiveness just as much as I do.

I find it fitting that as I was looking for the thing that was plaguing me I could only describe it as feeling “unresolved.” Here at the new year when everyone is throwing around their New Years “Resolutions” I am struck that it is simply used synonymously with “decision.” We are making decisions as to what we are going to do the next year.

Resolve is defined as: decide: bring to an end; settle conclusively; conclude: reach a conclusion after a discussion or deliberation. It actually means that we have “decided” or “concluded” after careful thought and examination.

It implies the end of something as opposed to the beginning of something. To settle, resolve, at the end of the year is actually a rather fitting thing for me to do. So while you all are resolving to be a better person in the future, I am taking the time to resolve conclusively an issue I have deliberated on in my heart for this whole year and many years before that.

So go ahead and make your promises. Set your jaw for the future. But as for me I sit here with an awesome gift to enter the New Year with forgiveness in my heart and peace in my mind. I have truly resolved.