Forgiving My Enemies

I know the question sounds impossible: how could anyone ask you to forgive the people who hurt you? The Christian scriptures put it plainly. Matthew 5:44 says, "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who prosecute you." Another verse goes further: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Reading that, most people push back. How do you let go of pain someone caused on purpose, and then turn around and wish them well? What I want to do here is tell you what actually happened to me, and how this one idea pulled me out of a depression that lasted years.

In my second year of college I met a man at an alumni event. He was good looking and sharp, a senior who had already finished his program and taken a job at an IT company. I was one of the current students helping to run the gathering. He had served as college secretary during his own time there, so I kept having to reach out to him for information we were handing to the student body.

We started texting a lot. I could tell he was interested, and after a few months of getting to know each other, going out, spending hours together, he proposed. I didn't say yes right away. I took a few days to sit with it, then agreed. The year of our engagement felt wonderful. We kept learning about each other and growing closer.

Because he had been a senior and former secretary, a lot of my classmates envied me, and plenty of the girls were friendly with him too. It never bothered me. If anything I liked that so many people wanted to be around him.

My final year got hectic with my thesis, so we barely saw each other. Once I submitted it, I felt the weight lift and called to tell him I had finished my degree. That's when his tone changed. He suddenly said he was busy, and every time I asked when we could meet he had another excuse to dodge the date. Something felt off. I told myself maybe work was rough on him, maybe something was happening with his family, so I stopped calling to give him room. Weeks went by. He still wouldn't open up, and by then I knew something was badly wrong.

Our class organized a night out, and we all ended up sleeping in the same room. A close friend of mine, someone who knew everything about my relationship, was next to me. I don't usually fall asleep before two in the morning, so I was lying there watching videos on my tablet with my headphones in. Around one o'clock I heard a phone buzzing. It was hers, an incoming call. I reached over to wake her and happened to see the number on the screen. It was my fiance.

I woke her anyway and pretended I'd seen nothing, then lay back down. She talked to him for the next two hours while I cried silently under the sheets. From the way they spoke I understood they had grown close, that they had been together more than once. The next morning I didn't say a word to anyone. I packed up and went home, and the days that followed were the worst I have ever lived through. I felt robbed, and I stopped trusting people entirely.

He tried calling a few times after that. I never answered, and I cut off both him and my friend. I found a job and threw myself into it, going to the office every day and working until I was exhausted, because keeping busy was the only thing that dulled the pain. I skipped parties, backed away from friendships, avoided family gatherings. For three years I moved through life like something half dead. I was deeply depressed. My friends and family kept trying to lift me, but nothing reached me. I couldn't sleep, I lost weight, my skin turned pale and stayed that way.

Then one day a friend asked me to come with her to church. I didn't want to, but I went. The priest spoke about those same verses, and the way he explained them cut right through to where I was. "Love your enemies and pray for those who prosecute you." If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. I started to take the words seriously, and I began questioning myself. Why am I clinging to this anger and wrecking my own life over it? Yes, they lied to me, they made a mockery of what I felt, they treated me terribly. Still, I could choose to be good.

I won't pretend I was ready to pray for them. I'm still not that generous. But I could forgive. "I accept their mistakes and I forgive them," I told God. You wouldn't believe what happened next. After three long years I was finally at peace. I went back to feeling like myself that same day. I smiled again. I thanked God for the courage it took to let go.

I never reached out to either of them again, but I'm certain that if I ran into them tomorrow the anger would be gone. No one is perfect. People make mistakes, even bad ones, and only a handful of us can bring ourselves to forgive. So forgive them. Not for their sake. For yours.