One day I dropped a glass, and it smashed, spraying shards across the linoleum and into the carpet of the nearby dining area. I cleaned up the mess, taking care to pick up every shard I could see, then sweeping and vacuuming the ones I could not. Satisfied the glass was safely in the trash, I dismissed the mishap and moved on.
Some time later, as I padded barefoot towards the kitchen, perhaps for a mug of coffee, I felt a sudden stab on the bottom of my foot! Oh no! I must have missed a tiny shard! Inspecting my foot, I did my best to find it. Finally, satisfied that nothing remained, I dismissed the incident.
Weeks passed. One day, as I walked along in my high-heeled shoes at work, I felt a pinprick of pain on the bottom pad of my upper foot. Ouch! What was that?! I continued experiencing a sharp jab when I walked. It caused me to favor my right foot and even limp to avoid putting pressure on the spot. In the evenings I inspected the bottom of my foot, probing the area with clippers, trying to find the source of the sharp pain. No luck. This continued for weeks, which turned into months.
One evening, while inspecting my foot once again, I felt a hard bump near the surface. What was that?! I probed at it with clippers - my surgical instrument - and this time, out popped a tiny clear fragment. It was the splinter of glass that had become embedded in my foot many months ago! Over time, it had worked its way to the surface where it could, at last, be expelled from my body. Once I removed it, the sharp jab never occurred again. I could walk normally without the impediment I had tolerated for so long. The tiniest glass splinter had hidden beneath the tough skin of my foot, invisible to the eye, yet causing difficulty walking. I had learned to live with it! What a relief after it was gone! How good it felt to walk, putting my foot down without flinching. The freedom to walk normally felt so good.
Sometimes in life we pick up a shard of glass, a spiritual or emotional wound caused by something sharp, a leftover from someone else’s brokenness. Perhaps we were bullied as a child, judged for our looks, betrayed by a spouse, or rejected by someone we thought was a friend. Maybe the sharp, critical words of someone who mattered embedded deep in our heart, continuing to sting years later. Or maybe we have internalized insecurities from parental wounds of abuse, divorce, or abandonment, and our identity has formed around these wounds. The pain has been part of us for so long that we no longer know who we are apart from it, along with the little habits and strategies we have developed to accommodate the jabs.
When we’ve been hurt by people, we teach ourselves to withhold trust; we avoid letting relationships grow close. We become opaque, carefully masking our true selves from others. To be vulnerable might mean another shard of glass. The problem with this strategy is that, in attempting to avoid putting pressure on our sensitive heart, we develop a limp. Favoring the tender spot will never heal it. We can go through a lifetime hiding the shard of glass beneath a calloused heart. To become healed, to be the person we were created to be, we have to remove the shard of glass. How do we do this?
It is the process of forgiveness.
We need to think back over our life and acknowledge the source of pain, to identify where we picked up the shard of glass. Sometimes we know right away, and other times the wound originated in an obscure and forgotten past. This is an important step because, once we know what we are dealing with, we can engage in a process of allowing the shard to work its way to the surface, out of the depths of our buried emotions.
It can be helpful to try to understand the person who hurt us. Understanding another’s wounds and personality quirks can give us insight into how and why that person hurt us with his or her own brokenness. Remembering that we are all broken in some way can help our perspective mature, softening our sharp reactions of judgment. Asking God to love the person through us, to give us an attitude of compassion and tolerance, can help us realize how other people are often blind to the hurtful impact of their actions or careless words, just as we are. Identify with Jesus, who, while on the cross, asked the Father to forgive the people who had done this to him because they didn’t know what they were doing.
Through this process of identification, acknowledgment, examination, and prayer, we come to a place of mercy, grace, and compassion. The broken fragments work their way to the surface where we can let them go. We can expel the shard of glass that has been embedded in our hearts too long. We can forgive. Forgiveness brings healing, relief, and freedom - freedom to be who God made us to be. Forgiveness heals ourselves, and sometimes it heals the forgiven person too. Forgiveness allows us to be healed, but it also gives us the opportunity to be an agent of wholeness, an ambassador of God’s restorative work for everyone. We become part of the answer to the Lord’s prayer for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven.
by Heather J. Willis, author
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