Each morning when we’d get out of the car to walk to their class, I’d hand them their lunch and hold their hand. Without fail they’d ask, “Daddy is my face clean?” I’d lick my thumb, swipe it across their face and say, “Yep.” Then they’d give me their sticky little hand (who knows what from) and we’d walk together to their class hand-in-hand.

Every time I felt their little sticky hand in mine this little thought would flash across the back of my brain, “I’m gonna miss this someday.” I’d try harder to soak in the moment.

Last week we celebrated my youngest child graduating from preschool. No more extra hour in the morning. No more walks into preschool class. That chapter ends. But it’s only the great chapters that we wish wouldn’t end. So I’m grateful.

A new chapter begins. I’m tempted to rush into it.

But today I want to pause and thank God for those sticky hands and dirty faces.

This is a transitional season for many of us. What are you grateful for?

Today’s post may help you take a bold step.

Mary recently wrote an OPEN LETTER to the boys who abused her. Do yourself a favor and read it.

Today Mary shares why writing this letter helped her forgive and why you may want to write your own letter.

Who’s Mary?

Mary DeMuth is the author of over a dozen books including Everything: What You Give and What You Gain to Become Like Jesus and The Wall Around Your Heart (Thomas Nelson). She speaks and writes about finding an uncaged, freedom-infused life. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids.

I wrote the letter to the boys (now men) who molested me because I wanted to be freer from their clutches. I’ve grown significantly in my healing, but there was something about writing it all down that helped me reframe the past and clarify what it was I was forgiving. I was afraid to do it mainly because the letter is achingly vulnerable. It shows my anger. I share what they did and how it affected me.

I also believe by being so darned honest, I opened myself for spiritual attack. I don’t believe the enemy of our souls, Satan, wants sexual abuse victims to feel whole, clean and free. And boy did the attack come (in different ways). I particularly worried about my family of origin mocking me for the story, or making them angry by sharing it (though they had very little to do with the sexual abuse).

Writing the letter opened up a door for those boys to somehow find me, find grace and truth, and perhaps experience healing. I actually wrote it for them, with pity and empathy in my heart. In the book, As We Forgive, by Catherine Claire Larson, we learn an acronym of forgiveness called REACH:

Recall the hurt (don’t deny or minimize it).

Empathize with the person who hurt you (try to see it from their perspective)

Altruistic gift of forgiveness (Remember when someone forgave you)

Commit publicly to forgive

Hold on to forgiveness

This letter was all those steps. I recalled the hurt in detail, not holding back the pain. I showed empathy for those who hurt me. I remembered Jesus’ outrageous act of forgiveness for me. In writing the letter, I certainly committed publicly to forgive, and now, in the aftermath, I’m holding on to forgiveness. Forgiveness is a lifelong struggle.

For others who have been hurt, I would recommend writing a letter. It may not ever be sent, or shared in such a public way as mine was, but I believe just writing it will help. Be sure to give yourself permission to say it all. Be angry. Be hurt. Be truthful about how the person’s sin has hurt you. Try to find a point of empathy. Write the difficult “I forgive you” words. Perhaps share your letter with a close friend or spouse as your act of publicly forgiving. Then whenever you wonder if you’ve forgiven, refer back to the letter. It will serve as a tangible reminder that you have made the choice to forgive.

Find out more at marydemuth.com. Twitter: @MaryDeMuth. Facebook.com/authormarydemuth

Real Win will help you lock in on exactly what that should be. Colt McCoy and Matt Carter teach the difficult truths we face as men and leaders.

Ladies, this would be a great Father’s Day gift!

The co-authors:

Colt McCoy was the winningest quarterback in College Football history. (Hook ‘em Horns!)

“I would have never admitted it, but because of my hard work and ‘obedience,’ I felt that God owed me success.”

Matt Carter started Austin Stone Church in Austin, TX which is a growing mega-church with thousands of people attending weekly.

Both faced major disappointments:

Colt was injured in the most important game of his life (2009 National Championship Game).

Matt was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 31.

These life-changing events caused both men to redefine success.

“When a man grasps how short his life is, he begins to live with a new sense of what’s truly important.”

“If the pursuit of God and trusting Him fully isn’t at the core of your life, then it’s going to be impossible for you to really win.”

“There is only one place a man can find true happiness and contentment. In God.” “Your heart will never be satisfied with anything under the sun except God.”

Real Win explores the real win at home (chapters 3-5), at work (chapters 6-7), in your character (chapters 8-9), and long-term and finishing well (chapters 10-11).

“The deepest desire of your heart is God.”

However, when a morning fog often rolls in off the Pacific Ocean, I can no longer see beyond my backyard fence. After a few minutes my eyes won’t even look for the mountains, orchard, or trees. They instinctively focus on what is visible . . . my extremely tiny backyard.

#ForgivenessFriday aims to unleash forgiveness in people’s hearts. (Click HERE to read the beginning of this series.)

It’s as if the surrounding beauty has been completely erased. Deep down I know the beauty is still “out there” but the longer the fog lasts the more I forget. If the fog lasts for several days, I subconsciously begin to wonder if I’ll ever see my view again. The fog is especially heavy this month and is simply referred to as the “June Gloom”.

But in the moment the fog lifts, I feel as if God reassembled a majestic mountain, swaying palm trees and a fertile orchard that I can clearly see again. I usually take a deep breath and think, “Now that’s a beautiful site!”

Picture my wife took as Venturan fog rolls in on Good Friday – 2013

While I carried my grudge I experienced a mental fog. I saw nothing but my pain. It’s all I talked about and I thought no one understood. I wanted to say, “If you only knew how badly I was hurt, you would feel so sorry for me.”

Forgiving seemed as far away as the mountains, orchard, and palm trees feel in a Venturan fog. Deep down I sensed the beauty of forgiveness was “out there” but the longer I was in this mental fog the more I doubted it’s existence.

Ever been there? It’s hard to fully describe isn’t it? Maybe, you’re there now.

What can you do? First, it will help to ask yourself “How did I get here?” “Why am I carrying a grudge?”

According to Dr. Fred Luskin in his book Forgive for Good, there are three components of a long-standing hurt:

1. The exaggerated taking of a personal offense
2. The blaming of the offender for how you feel
3. The creation of a grievance story

I had done all three of these things.

You can battle component one (exaggerated taking of a personal offense) with one simple exercise: Identify your specific injury. (If you haven’t done this, click HERE to identify your injury.)

Because the circumstances of your hurt are unique, you sometimes falsely believe your injury is unique. Your circumstances are unique but your injury is common.

The moment you identify your specific injury, I think you’ll feel the mental fog lift. You’ll take a deep breath and discover, “I’m no longer alone and that’s a beautiful site!”

Patience = waiting until later for what you want now.

I learned that at church last month.

So we went to Disneyland for the first time in December. We rode scary, exciting, and fun rides at the “Happiest Place on Earth”. We had lots of fun!

At 9:30pm we returned to our suburban. We discovered the battery in the suburban was dead! We called the Disneyland auto club to come help us. The guy could not fix our battery.

Two or three hours later a man named Bobby showed up. He asked if he could help. Surprisingly, he was able to fix our battery and we left the Disneyland Parking Lot at 12:15am.

I think God was teaching me patience. I had to wait until later for what I wanted now.

I’m grateful for people like Bobby who helped us. I’m grateful we made it home safely.

“Wait for the Lord. Be strong, don’t lose hope. Wait for the Lord.” Ps. 27:14 (That’s the verse we learned last month at church.)

Sometimes God wants you to wait until later for what you want now. God will bring the people you need into your life and He will bring you home safely.

“OK God. I really need Your help to forgive and move forward. I can’t stay like this! But I don’t like him because . . . (I’d spend a few minutes replaying my mental ‘tapes’) . . . so help me forgive him.”

I’d end my prayers more resentful than when I started.

#ForgivenessFriday aims to unleash forgiveness in people’s hearts. (Click HERE to read the beginning of this series.)

I’ve read that 80% of what we see lies behind our eyes. In my mind, my former friend was nothing more than the person who hurt me.

As if discovering that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, I became certain that the good person in my memories didn’t really exist.

I shrunk him to the size of my hurt. I knocked the humanity out of him.

I created a Reality Distortion Field (RDF). Star Trek made this term famous but I first discovered the term reading a book about Steve Jobs, founder of Apple. (Apparently many of Steve Jobs’ co-workers believed he could convince himself and others to believe almost anything with his mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, and persistence.)

Why would I work so hard to distort reality?

I created an RDF for two reasons:

1. It justified my bitterness

2. It helped me feel innocent

My RDF created one major problem: It blocked my compassion. 

The more “guilty” I made him in my mind, the more “innocent” I made myself. I saw my offenses as one-time, “understandable”, minor offenses but his offenses as revelations of major, permanent character flaws. I felt zero compassion toward my former friend.

For three years my RDF was the suitcase that carried my grudge. In order to lay down my grudge, I needed to open that flawed suitcase.

Warning: Forgiveness is not for the weak. Confronting your deepest pain and developing compassion toward your offender is not a journey for the faint-hearted. What I’m about to suggest will require strength.

Why is developing compassion important?

1. Scripture teaches us to be compassionate

In Matthew 18 there was a man who saw an entire family as nothing but a financial debt. That was his RDF. In his mind, the family was nothing more than a number on the ledger sheet to this master. But when the master developed compassion, he suddenly forgave. Then the newly forgiven/freed servant went out and choked someone who owed him significantly less money than he’d just been forgiven. Why? The unforgiving servant didn’t see a person; he only saw an uncollected debt. Reality Distortion Field.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” -Eph. 4:32 (Notice compassion precedes forgiveness.)

In my quest for quick forgiveness, I wanted to skip compassion.

2. Developing compassion matures us

I asked Dr. Robert Enright, author of The Forgiving Life, “Can’t forgiving someone simply be an act between me and God? Why is compassion toward my offender important?”

Dr. Enright responded: “God surely can give us the grace to forgive, but if we look to Jesus Christ as our example, He struggled and suffered. When we do that, we mature as persons. Grace is not supposed to make us passive and receptive without maturation. It is the interaction of grace and struggle that brings out the beauty in a person.”

Developing compassion toward your offender forces you to wrestle with human brokenness while leaning harder on God’s grace. This does not mean you condone what they did. (I’ve recently read stories of incest survivors, victims of rape, Rwanda genocide survivors who’s entire families were murdered and yet each was able to develop compassion toward their offender.)

Where do you start?

The road to forgiveness begins at the foot of the cross. From here my offender and I share common ground. “In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.” -Andy Stanley

Questions to help you develop compassion toward your offender:

1. What was life like for the person at the time of the offense?
2. What was life like for the person when he/she was growing up?
3. Can you see this person as a real, broken person full of meanness and decency, lies and truths, good and evil?
4. Can you see this person as someone God created in His image?
5. Can you see this person as someone Christ died to forgive?
6. Can you see this offense as something Christ is willing to forgive?

As you begin to develop compassion, it might help to repeat the following statement daily for the next week:

“Like me, (Name) has been emotionally wounded. Like Jesus had compassion toward me, I have compassion toward (name). I do not condone or excuse what (name) has done. He (she) is more than what he (she) did to me.”

Reminder: Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiving them doesn’t turn them into a close friend or a promising spouse. You do not condone what they did but they are more than what they did to you.

It’s easy to redefine the person who hurt you. I did. But we’re tricking ourselves into a “hurt and bitterness dead-end”.

Compassion precedes forgiveness. Compassion moves us from a wounded heart to a softened heart.

“When we forgive each other, we begin to see more clearly. We do not ignore the hurts, but we see beyond them. We rediscover the humanity of the one who hurt us.” – John Ortberg

If you know someone who is struggling to have compassion for their offender, will you forward this to them?

Is there someone’s face on the dartboard of your mind right now?

Have you been on the receiving end of someone else’s anger?

Statistically, America is considered the most violent nation in the “developed” world clocking in with one violent crime every 24 seconds, an aggravated assault every 48 seconds, a murder every 23 minutes.

“Show me an angry person and I’ll show you a hurt person. And I guarantee you that person is hurt because something has been taken. Somebody owes them something.” -Andy Stanley

“Of all the seven deadly sins, anger is the one that tastes the best. This is the one we actually enjoy . . . we take it in, welcome it, build the nest – then we begin fantasizing speeches, thinking about how to get even, devising plans of attack.” – David Jeremiah

This weekend my pastor, Daniel Hahn, spoke on the topic of anger based on the life of Samsom in Judges 15:1-7. It was such an insightful message. Below are some of the insights.

Five truths about anger: 

1) Anger is often triggered by some sort of disillusionment.

2) Anger is fueled by the perception that a debt is owed.

3) Anger naturally escalates like a wild fire out of control.

4) Anger creates all sorts of collateral damage.

5) Anger leaves relational chasms that can last a lifetime.

“We have the illusion that other people should act better than we act.” – Daniel Hahn

Three ways to monitor your own battle with anger:

 1. Motives

What is your motive? Are you wanting revenge? Are you wanting to make them pay? Are you wishing them harm?

 2. Patterns

What usually triggers your anger?

“One of my (Daniel) ‘anger triggers’ is when I do my best and someone criticizes my best.” What’s triggering your anger?

 3. Results

What are some of the stories, injuries, and outcomes from your previous anger?

No matter how badly you’ve been hurt – there’s another path you can take. There is usually one cure: Forgiveness.

You can listen to all of Daniel’s message by clicking HERE.

For the first time in my life, I was facing a new enemy: depression.

If you’ve ever fought this battle, you know how exhausting it is. Some days start off fine. But then, without notice, a fog rolls in and pulls you into an emotional sinkhole. What Winston Churchill referred to as his personal “black dog” was a “gray fog” for me.

I’d never struggled with this before! How did I end up here?

#ForgivenessFriday is about unleashing forgiveness in the hearts of people. (Click HERE to read the beginning of this series.)

In late 2008, my pastor/best friend and I were suddenly “former friends”. One of the tragic results of our broken friendship was the negative impact it had on the hundreds of mutual relationships we shared. All of the beautiful smiles, warm hugs, and easy laughter seemed to have been erased. (You can click HERE to read why our friendship ended.)

I was profoundly sad. Many of us were. I wanted to move on. Many of us did. But I just couldn’t. Forgiveness felt as close as a distant planet.

In the aftermath, I became depressed. I would later discover that carrying a grudge while ignoring my heart was a recipe for depression.

Did you know that your heart has a voice? I didn’t. Did you know that your feelings are trying to tell you something important? I didn’t. Did you know that listening to your heart’s voice is part of the forgiveness process? I didn’t!

I usually have two extreme responses to my emotions:

1. I let them control me
2. I ignore them completely

Feelings are great indicators but terrible leaders. Our feelings shouldn’t lead but they shouldn’t be ignored.

I was ignoring my heart but demanding it produce forgiveness. That’s like ignoring my body’s health and expecting it to run a marathon or like ignoring the warning lights on my car’s dashboard and expecting it to drive me across the country. My heart was saying, “When you’re ready to listen, we’ll talk.” But I just kept screaming, “Be quiet and give me forgiveness!” This daily inner argument continued for months and eventually my exhausted heart sank into depression.

Feelings are an important part of the forgiveness process. They reveal how pain is impacting our heart. Why is this important? The heart is the forgiveness “launching pad” according to Matt. 18:35.

Identify my feelings? Isn’t that what therapists and women do? I just felt “bad” and needed to forgive so I could feel “good”. Turns out that approach didn’t work out too well for me.

With the help of a friend, I eventually identified three specific feelings my heart experienced: a deep hurt and a profound sadness which eventually turned into anger. I understand now that my attempt to constantly suppress my anger led to my depression.

According to Dr. Chip Dodd’s book, The Voice of the Heart, all emotions are God-given and intended for good . . . even my anger. (Productive anger was displayed by Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus.)

Do you want to forgive? Do you know how the pain of your offense has impacted your heart (forgiveness launching pad)? Listening to your heart is a spiritual discipline. Identifying your feeling(s) allows you to listen and fully surrender more of yourself to God.

Last Friday, I talked about the importance of identifying the specific injustice. (Click HERE for a list of typical injustices.)

Next, identify the impact of the injustice on your heart.

To help you identify it’s impact, ask yourself, “When I think about (name your injustice), what’s the main emotion I feel?” Identify your feeling(s) from the list of eight below.

After you identify your feeling(s), don’t lead it lead you but don’t ignore it. Instead, do these three things:

1. Feel the feeling(s) fully
2. Tell the truth about what you feel
3. Surrender control of that feeling(s) to God.

Your heart is the forgiveness launching pad. Listen to your heart’s voice before you demand it produce forgiveness.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Prov. 4:23

Know someone struggling to forgive? Will you forward this to them?

Dr. Dodd’s list of 8 feelings w/benefit & impairment:

Feeling                 —              Benefit                —              Impairment

1) Hurt  -  Names woundedness & begins healing  -  Resentment

2) Sadness - Allows us to value/honor what’s present & missed – Self-pity

3) Loneliness - Allows us to ask for help, reach out relationally – Apathy

4) Fear  -  Helps us practice/prepare for accomplishment  -  Anxiety/Rage

5) Anger - Helps us tell the truth/dare to hope  - Depression/Perfection

6) Shame  -  Awakens us to humility  -  Toxic shame/Pride/Rage

7) Guilt  -  Gives us freedom to seek forgiveness  -  Pride/Toxic shame

8) Gladness  -  Reveals the richness of life  -  Happiness/Entertainment

I know I need to teach my kids how to identify what they are feeling so that they can be more aware of what’s going on in their heart and be able to communicate that.

“As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.” – Prov. 27:19

Imagine if your children could quickly identify their feelings.

With that desire I read Chip Dodd’s book, The Voice of the Heart. According to Dr. Dodd, there are only eight feelings: Hurt, loneliness, sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt, and gladness.

Why is love not on the list? According to Dodd, “Love is not on the list because love is so much more than a feeling . . . Love has feelings in it, but love is more than a feeling.”

Why is only one feeling positive? According to Dodd, “Each feeling is positive because of where it can lead . . . all eight feelings are good . . . it’s my behavior that is good or bad; feelings themselves are good – each feeling is a gift from God.”

Each feeling has its own purpose:

Hurt leads to healing

Loneliness moves us to intimacy

Sadness expresses value and honor

Anger hungers for life

Fear awakens us to danger and begins wisdom

Shame maintains humility and mercy

Guilt brings forgiveness

Gladness proves hope of the heart to be true

Why identify your feelings?  “Wherever you lack awareness of your heart, no room exists for God.”

So you identify your feeling. Then what? According to Dr. Dodd, the response to identifying your feeling is a three-step process:

1. You’re able to fully feel your feeling
2. You tell the truth about what is happening inside of you
3. You surrender control to God

On Saturday, I challenged my oldest two daughters to memorize the list of eight feelings for a $.50 reward (I know, I’m cheap). They memorized the list quickly.

As my oldest daughter and I were riding in the car to church yesterday, she said, “Dad, can you list the eight feelings?” I smiled and together we remembered the full list. Then she said, “I’m a little nervous right now so I guess that comes from fear right?”

“Yes, I guess so. Why are you a little nervous?” I asked. “This morning I’m visiting ‘Breakaway’ (our middle school ministry) for the first time.”

So together, we walked through the three-step process to:

1. Fully feel your feelings (we talked about the origin and physical effects of fear)
2. Spoke about the truth of what was happening inside of her
3. Encouraged her to surrender control of this feeling to God.

I LOVED the smile on her face. Though she remained nervous, she was able to embrace her opportunity and her need for God’s help.

What do you do to help your children identify and communicate their feelings?

Why #ForgivenessFriday? Together, we’re unleashing forgiveness in hearts.

Last year, I read a book that changed everything for me! Three years after my original hurt, I finally began the forgiveness process when I read The Forgiving Life by Robert Enright.

Today, I want you to hear from Dr. Enright who graciously agreed to this interview.

Dr. Enright, you outline 3 discoveries needed to begin the forgiveness process: 1) Identify the person you need to forgive, 2) Identify your injustice, and 3) Identify the impact of each injustice in your life.

1. Isn’t it already obvious whom we need to forgive?

It rarely is obvious whom we need to forgive. For example, when a husband and a wife are consistently angry with each other, frequently there are unresolved anger issues from childhood. The spouses forget this and focus instead only on one another. If they will resolve the anger in their relationship, they may have to first forgive people from long ago who hurt them and left emotional scars.

2. I was personally shocked to discover how helpful it was to identify my specific injustice. Why is this so helpful?

It puts into perspective the exact nature of the offenses against us. It is difficult to forgive people if we are vague about what happened, or even who hurt us (as in question 1 above).

3. Why is identifying the impact of the injustice on our life so important?

We so often “stuff” the pain in over-work or over-drink or over-just-about-anything-else.  We distract ourselves from the pain. When we stop and take stock of all the built-up pain we realize that we have a lot of emotional work to do and forgiveness helps with that.

4. The Forgiveness Landscape in chapter eight is the most detailed approach to forgiveness I have discovered. (You also make these tools available at http://www.mindgarden.com/forgiveness/.) Why is this helpful?

Filling out the Forgiveness Landscape Scale (in the book, The Forgiving Life, or at the Mind Garden site) can be very eye-opening. People are quite surprised when they generate the list of people at whom they still harbor anger, even after many years. This can be an invaluable experience of seeing who hurt us and wiping the resentment-slate clean, and how amazing would that be to be free of resentments that can go back decades.

5. Scripture teaches that we are body, mind, and soul (heart). Our hurts impact our mind and our heart. Should our forgiveness process address both?

Yes, we need to do both, clearly see all the injustices against us and then to assess the psychological impact on us. This is why we have the Personal Forgiveness Scale in the book, The Forgiving Life,—to assess the degree of emotional damage from the injustice as well as the degree of improvement in emotional health following forgiveness.

6. As part of your forgiveness process, you suggest working toward understanding and then compassion toward our offender. Can’t forgiving someone simply be an act between me and God?

God surely can give us the grace to forgive, but if we look to Jesus Christ as our example, He struggled and suffered. When we do that, we mature as persons. Grace is not supposed to make us passive and receptive without maturation. It is the interaction of grace and struggle that brings out the beauty in a person.

7. Since forgiveness is a process, is there any data that predicts how long the process typically lasts?

The data basically show that the forgiveness process varies among people. The process also depends on the seriousness of the offense (the more serious the offense, the longer the process tends to be). Further, the more people are familiar with forgiveness, the more they practice it, the more quickly forgiveness is likely to be realized.

8. Why have you spent so much of your life working on forgiveness?

Because I am a narrow-minded academic…….who loves this stuff.  I have been studying forgiveness for over 28 years now…..and I have not have one boring day in all that time.  

9. Do you believe there are certain injustices that are too horrible to forgive?

No. There are people who will not forgive certain offenses (the murder of a child is one example), but there are no offenses where we cannot find some people who have successfully forgiven. In my first book, Exploring Forgiveness (1998), there is a chapter by Marietta Jaeger in which she beautifully describes her process of forgiving the man who murdered her daughter.

10. Does forgiving become easier?

Forgiveness can become more quickly accomplished with practiced, but I have never seen anyone say it is easy. The cross is never easy.

Click HERE for a copy of Dr. Eright’s insightful book.

If you know of someone wanting to begin the forgiveness process, will you share this with them? Together, let’s unleash forgiveness in the hearts of many.

Dr Enright’s bio:

Robert Enright, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, is a licensed psychologist and professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a founding member of the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc. in Madison. He is the author of over 120 publications, including five books: Exploring Forgiveness, Helping Clients Forgive, Forgiveness Is a Choice, a children’s book, Rising above the Storm Clouds, and The Forgiving Life. He has been a leader in the scientific study of forgiveness and its effects since 1985. His work on the subject has appeared in Time, McCall’s, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, NBC’s Nightly News, and many other television and radio shows. He is a recent recipient of the University of Wisconsin’s highest award, The Hilldale Award, focused on excellence in research, teaching, and public service. Currently, Dr. Enright is working on forgiveness education programs for primary school children in Milwaukee’s central-city and Belfast, Northern Ireland.