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Be Happy! Day 2

Let go of grievances

[ Jesus said,] ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ Matthew 5.9

When I got my first job as a teacher in a primary school, I moved out of my parents’ home and bought a flat in South London. I chose one on a council estate where the children I was teaching lived, because I thought that had more integrity. To those who came and visited me there, thank you for the happy memories – and I’m sorry about your wing mirrors!

It had stretched me as far as I could to buy the place, so I thought I was quite poor. But I was naive, and I got a shock when I found myself living among people who really were poor. I got on very well with Suzanne, whose front door was opposite mine. I admired her terrifically because she was putting grim family circumstances behind her and bringing up her little boy Joel to rise above them. It was the first time it had occurred to me that some people live in a house with no carpet, so I was learning a great deal in a short time.

One of Suzanne’s relatives died in Leeds, and she got the chance to go and take any furniture she wanted. For her, it was like stumbling on hidden treasure, and she asked if I could help. I hired a lorry, put the couple of hundred pounds it cost on my credit card, and we drove up there. We loaded the furniture, brought it home, and it transformed the flat. Fantastic! The deal was that she would give me £5 a month until she had paid me back, which I could cope with as long as I was careful not to buy anything frivolous. When the next month came round, she couldn’t manage to make the first payment, so I said she should wait for another month before she started paying. But the next month a crisis arose, and she put it off again. It was the same the following month, and I began to realize that I was never going to see any of the money again. This was, to be honest, a bit of a problem for me financially.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Colossians 3.13–15

Pardon one another so that later on you will not remember the injury. The remembering of an injury is itself a wrong: it adds to our anger, feeds our sin and hates what is good. It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul. Francis of Paola, founder of an Italian monastic order, 1416–1507

But the worst thing was that each time I met Suzanne, virtually every other day, one or other of us was having to bring up the subject of the money. I felt really bad about it, and she must have felt worse. Soon I found myself checking through the spy glass in the front door before I went out because I didn’t want to meet her accidentally and have to acknowledge this grievance between us. And one day, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that she was doing exactly the same, and I realized that the relationship had been ruined.

This was miserable, because all the joy of the fact that she now had a sofa and a wardrobe had turned into a burden because of the debt. I had a long think about it, and finally decided that the only thing I could do was to let go of the money, pretend it had never happened, and get the friendship back on track. So I went and told her that a wealthy person at my church had offered to pay off my credit card. This was a complete lie, so the ninth commandment will probably be nailed to my coffin! In fact, I had to make a few sacrifices to get out of the mess, but it completely solved the problem between us.

However, there was something I hadn’t expected, and that was the tidal wave of relief that flooded over me once I had let go of this grievance that had come between us. I felt renewed and happy. In fact, even remembering it today has brought back some of that joy of a burden lifting.

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive. C. S. Lewis, writer and academic, 1898–1963

After that I kept looking at other people on the estate and noticing those who had lost their happiness over conflicts and sores which they just couldn’t let go. A man who was exhausting himself into misery in a dispute with the council, from whom he was trying to get compensation because he broke his ankle by tripping in the street. Another man who hadn’t spoken to his brother for a decade over a refusal to apologize and had sunk into a depression that was disabling every aspect of his life. A woman who sat virtually all day by her back window with a glass of water to throw at her neighbour’s cat if it set foot in her garden – a source of constant bickering between them. And I kept thinking, ‘Why don’t you just let go of this stuff? Just let go of it! You don’t have to be religious about it. You don’t have to worry that you haven’t had the last word, or got what you deserved. You don’t even have to tell anyone what you’ve done. Just let go! Make up your mind that these grievances are not going to have any power over you from now on. And feel the life-giving freedom of being a peacemaker.’

God of peace, release me from the need to have the last word, the best deal, the winning argument. Instead give me back the freedom of friendship. And then let me call you father. Amen.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Or in the nearest English equivalent to Jesus’ original saying: ‘Congratulations to you peacemakers!’

Congratulations to you who summon the patience to stop snapping at someone and start listening to them instead. Congratulations to you who talk long into the night with people who feel lost, and lead them gently to the peace of forgiveness. Congratulations to you who succeed in letting go of a grievance and restoring a relationship. Does it mean you have released someone from a burden? No! It’s the other way round. By forgiving someone you release the hold they have on you – that is why Jesus said you will be blessed if you succeed in making peace.

And your reward? God knows you as his son or his daughter. Why is that? Because when he sees what you have done, he recognizes a faint, flickering image of his own dear child, Jesus.

So give it a try! Let go! Just let go of the things that have disrupted the peace between you and someone else, and see what happens. You’ve got nothing to lose. After all, if it doesn’t work, there’s nothing to stop you going back to the hate and tension again. You won’t be any worse off! But maybe … who knows?

There’s no guarantee it will be easy to be called a child of God. If you doubt that, just remember what happened to the original Child of God in the years that followed him talking about making peace during a sermon he gave on a hill overlooking Lake Galilee.

But give it a go! Blessed are the peacemakers. Children of God. Just let go of stuff. Be glad! Congratulations!

Be happy! Bring to mind the people or organizations who have slighted you, or hurt your feelings. People or businesses who owe you something, material or intangible, or with whom you need to get even. Think about the ways in which these things have held you back. Weigh up for a while whether it would be possible for you to write off these debts as if they had never happened. Make up your mind to try living as if they have no power over you at all, perhaps just for a trial period. There is no need to tell anyone that you have forgiven them. But monitor whether you have more peace of mind now that you have let go of the weight you were dragging around.