I wrote this for someone near and dear to my heart as I process the grief I feel through the pain I’ve caused. As I reread it I saw faces of others and the hurt I caused them through my words and also the unforgiveness of others I’ve too held onto. All the toothpaste that just can never seem to make its way back into the tube no matter how hard we try to resolve it. How only God can truly heal with the deepest level of forgiveness. It is in that profound grace and forgiveness that we can surrender and let go of all the past hurts for those who have sinned against us as well as ourselves. I see how applicable this letter is and how universal its message. I send it not only to the loved ones I long to heal with but to the entire collective in hopes we could all find grace and forgiveness through holy compassion. This human experience is wrought with conflict and it is up to us to open the door to the grace that will provide its resolution. Love and forgiveness is our only solution.
To Whom It May Concern,
I was wrong and I’m committed to making it all right. I said things out of frustration that turned into fiery darts of poison that pierced and penetrated. I am deeply remorseful beyond what you can imagine. I’ve hit my knees and asked God for forgiveness and that he would help your heart to find forgiveness too. I own it. Fully, wholly, totally and completely. It is mine to reconcile and in my reconciliation, I am praying for ours. I’m praying that grace would fill the space between our hurts and hearts. That wrong would be transcended into the holy light of truth that reveals only and ever the LOVE and the crying out for it. In my human frustration, I spoke words over you that were harsh and untrue. It was an unconscious effort to restore the relationship that had become broken through another speaking out of context that which the heart always truly longs to convey. And that is love. When we feel its absence we inflict insult and injury and break things, even more, when we were only trying to repair them. This is what happens when we take matters into our own hands instead of putting them in the hands of God and asking for his holy help. For his divine grace and mending mercy. To rectify and resurrect for it is only in his power and authority that we can transform and transcend. And so I pray today with deep reverence and soul mourning repentance for my sin against you and that God would heal your heart to forgive the one who breaks it. That you too would connect to your own humanity and see the log that becomes the cog in the wheel well of forgiveness. To remember that we’ve all said things out of hurt and frustration that can’t be unsaid and that you are not excluded in this either. To take a moment to breathe into our human frailty and see the flaw in it. That we need divine intervention and holy help. That we need the saving grace of our Lord and Savior. The one who took it all upon him so none of us would have to carry it.
In my divine surrender, I lean even more not on my own understanding of things but on what he has shown me in and through his. The truth that sets us all free. That we are forgiven. We are redeemed. That we are restored and refurbished. And it is my deepest prayer that our relationship would be restored and refurbished. That we could find that spirit of understanding that sees the love and releases any and all offense. That commits to the truth more than the lie that was spoken in the moment out of human frustration in its soul howl for deeper connection. The very thing we all crave. Let our hearts not shut the door in the face of our humanity and instead let us fling it open ever wider and invite it all. The holy AND the human. The sickness AND the health. The frustration AND the LOVE that stands behind the veil of it waiting to breathe a sigh of relief.
I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. And thank you. For showing me the shadow of my shame and in Jesus’ name I release all blame. And it’s my earnest prayer that you would do the same…
~Audra Erwin
