FORGIVENESS IS OUR PATH FORWARD
Forgiveness is the Path Forward
The day after the 2025 election, I woke up with anger in my soul. I was angry my candidate lost, angry so many people voted for the other candidate, angry they didn’t see how horrible their candidate was and would be for our country, and I remained angry for many months afterward. I subscribed to the FAFO philosophy. “Well, they f’d around and now they’ll find out,” I said over and over as if I wanted them to have retribution for the decisions they made. A few weeks ago, I felt the Holy Spirit weigh heavily on my soul. I kept hearing “Forgive them for they know not what they do,” and I realized that I was becoming just like the people I was angry at, I was becoming hateful and that’s not who God is calling me or any of us to be.
Forgiveness is what God calls us to do and it’s a really big task in the world we are living in, especially when we feel as though we’ve been wronged. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been wronged by countless people in my life, including my own father, and after every wrong, I held onto anger and hatred more than I care to admit. A few years back, though, I came to the conclusion that all of that hate and anger was acting like a cancer in my soul. I found myself complaining constantly about the wrongdoers, and every time I went into that headspace, I was the only one feeling bad about it. The wrongdoers were carrying on with their lives without a care in the world for me and my hurt feelings.
I finally decided to forgive and let go of the toxic baggage I was clinging onto so tightly, and it felt phenomenal. I forgave my father along with a laundry list of other people in my life and my life felt instantly better. Turns out, forgiveness was actually the perfect antidote to anger and hatred; and this is exactly what God is calling 75 million of us to do now. He is calling us to forgive the people for the choices they made in November. Our country has been in a constant state of battle since 2016 and it’s time to put the weapons down and practice more forgiveness. It’s time to stop taking an eye for an eye and think more about how we can forgive and move forward to a better future for all of us.
I call on and implore you to work with me to de-escalate the hateful rhetoric in our society and embrace forgiveness and love. I know it’s not easy, believe me, it’s taken me months to get to this place, but it’s where we’re called to be. We know they aren’t true Christians but we are and we know Christ would want us to forgive people even if they’ve caused us harm. I hope you’ll join me in not only forgiving our wrongdoers but also in praying for them and praying that they will truly seek God during these difficult times. And when they seek God, they will find us, with open arms, ready to move forward with love.