My Journey From Betrayal Through Forgiveness

Two women in a forgiving hug

I have had a writer’s block on writing this blog for several weeks. A blog or story can be completely different dependent on which perspective you take of a situation. I have indicated many times in the past that I am a born-again Christian, aka a Christ follower. I seek to follow His teachings and the example He set in the years of His earthly ministry. Many of those teachings are out of synch with today’s culture. We are told to be in the world, but not of the world.

Have you ever been betrayed by someone you trusted? Have you struggled with working through the hurt and unforgiveness afterwards? Today’s blog is my personal journey through hurt, anger, bitterness, and my journey to forgiveness.

As a born-again Christian, I am taught and commanded that the foremost commandment is to love my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:30-31).

Anyone’s journey to healing after a betrayal involves forgiveness. Martin Luther King had a quote that “forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”  I found this to be absolutely true.

To release someone fully, I must receive fully. We do not earn God’s forgiveness. God does not “get even” with us when we fail. He forgave us fully with the death of His son, Jesus, on the cross as a onetime sacrifice covering the sin of those who accept His invitation to ask His Son into our (my) life as Lord and Savior. He forgave us fully with Jesus’ blood (II Cor 5:10). He made us righteous through Christ’s righteousness.

We forgive others because God forgave us. It is not because we deserved or earned forgiveness. When we do not forgive, we are playing God with others. To become the man God intended me to be, I need to be able to forgive others unconditionally, the way that God has forgiven me. Forgiveness is paramount for us to heal on the inside.

Resentment, anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness only hurt me. They will destroy me. Many people develop unhealthy and ungodly habits to compensate for their hurt. We can become hard-hearted and hateful. My unforgiveness impacts the people and relationships around me. Especially those who had no part in the original unforgiven act. Unforgiveness and its side-effect cousins can destroy relationships with others --- even those we love dearly.

If you ever want to understand a journey from betrayal to forgiveness, read the story of Joseph in Genesis (chapters 37-50). God gave Joseph two dreams at age 17. They were God’s future vision of the man He intended him to be. Joseph was not ready for his destiny yet. God had to prepare him over the next 40 years by transforming him into the leader required to fulfill his God given destiny and purpose. Joseph encountered trials and persecution along the way to grow him into the person and leader God intended him to be. His trials involved enslavement, prison two separate times, and extended periods of God’s silence.

God intent is to grow us where we are while He develops us into the person He always intended us to become. Think of it this way: God determines the direction, but we determine the speed by how quickly we learn along the way. We often do not understand God’s direction, but God works out the details of our journey along the way because he is omnipotent and in control. Only we can derail our destiny.

Forgiveness is a process. It does not happen overnight. Recently I started reading a book recommended by David Jeremiah in a sermon. He said it was tremendously impactful in his own life. The book is entitled Forgive & Forget, Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve, by Lewis B Smedes. I have found it helpful in my own journey too.

As we work through forgiveness and healing for hurts, we need to let God be God. Romans 12:19 says “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to God’s wrath; for it is written, vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

Our forgiveness and healing grow our relationship with God. He ultimately judges all for their actions. Those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior spend eternity with Him. Those who do not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior spend eternity in a place of torment and pain.

We forgive others because God forgave us. It is not because we deserved or earned forgiveness. To become the man God intended me to be, I need to be able to forgive others unconditionally, the way that God has forgiven me.

Now about my personal journey from betrayal through forgiveness.

After my retirement from my telecom employer, I did a couple of consulting gigs for some international telecoms. Retirement was not an option due to the elder care costs I was incurring for my mom after my dad’s passing. I ended up as a full-time contract executive with a start-up software company. My partners were friends and former contractors on my large development team during my telecom years. We had verbal discussions and a contract with explicit details on compensation and a handshake agreement on remote work from my East coast second home. The contract was for 18 months. Things were good for a while.

At some point things headed south after about 15 months. I found myself terminated one weekend while on the East Coast. All access turned off at midnight on a Saturday night, with no verbal or written communication. A co-worker and I were in the middle of turning up a new client on some new software. Just cut off. I really felt betrayed. My friendship was betrayed and I felt that both the contractual and verbal agreements were betrayed.

At the time I was also going through a personal crisis. I had just been diagnosed with a recurrence of my cancer after four and one-half years. I suppose I could have gone groveling back to Texas looking to get reinstated, but I had bigger battles to navigate with the prospects of radiation and chemotherapy in my near-term future.

The termination was like a bowling ball hitting a strike on a bowling lane in my personal life. My mom’s elder care costs were running $30K per month, which were no longer affordable. I ended up moving my mom out of her independent living apartment with full time care into an assisted living apartment. The full-time care had been a Household Employee CNA that I had to terminate. Two years later, she is still unemployed. The bowling ball wrecked her life completely. In the first six months that my mom was in elder care, she had two hospital stays that resulted in her being in Hospice care for the last eighteen months and now completely in a wheelchair. Obviously, the hospital and Hospice care were not a result of the termination, but they certainly added to the stress. More importantly, as we are in the midst of our unforgiveness and bitterness, we attribute independent circumstances to our misery. We are a victim and everything that happens to us makes us bigger victims.

All the while, I was fighting my second round of cancer in 5 years for all last year. Thankfully, I am in remission now.

Needless to say, I had lots of reasons to be hurt, angry, bitter, unforgiving, and out for revenge.

My faith preserved me from making some bad life choices.

1)      Resentment, anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness only hurt me. They will eat me alive internally and ultimately destroy me. They impact my relationships with others.

2)      I understood that my journey to healing after a betrayal involved forgiving my betrayer.

3)      We forgive others because God forgave us. It is not because I deserved or earned forgiveness.

4)      When I do not forgive, I am playing God with others.

5)      To become the man God intended me to be, I need to be able to forgive others unconditionally, the way that God has forgiven me.

6)      Forgiveness is paramount for me to heal on the inside.

7)      I also had a revelation that like an eyewitness at a traffic accident, we each have our perspective of what happens based on our own filters. My perceptions of the circumstances causing me to feel betrayed may not be like the perceptions of the person who betrayed me. Truth is often in the middle somewhere.

8)      Forgiveness is a journey and a process. It does not happen overnight.

9)      As I worked through the process, I had to re-forgive several times. The healing came in stages.

a.      The pain subsided.

b.      I could see, to a certain extent, my betrayer’s perspective. That does not mean I agreed with it, but at least I could see his rationale through his eyes.

c.      Another stage was simply a recognition that I am not going to let the event hurt me anymore.

d.      Another stage was a semi-forgiveness where I was no longer looking for vengeance but not wishing him success.

e.      A later stage was wishing him success.

f.       As a born-again Christian, I pray for the salvation of my family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers by name. I started praying for his salvation.

g.      As I pray for people’s salvation, I look to receive them fully as a brother or sister in Christ. Literally a brother or sister in Christ. We are all God’s children and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and resurrection bought us eternal life with Him and His Father. No distinctions amongst us are based on anything like race, creed, color, gender, or political beliefs. We were all purchased with His blood on the cross and are children of the same Father now. As I prayed for my betrayer’s salvation, I had to be willing to receive him fully as my brother too.

That was forgiveness. I forgave because I was forgiven unconditionally. My friend has not received Christ as his personal savior yet --- but that is my prayer for him.

How does this all relate to a series of blogs on Leadership? I frequently told my teams that we spent more than eight hours per day with each other. We frequently worked nights and weekends. Often the times together were under intense pressure and stress. We were bound to have situations where we felt unheard, slighted, insulted, betrayed, etc by each other. My coaching was that it was imperative that we resolve those conflicts. Conflicts resolved result in greater trust and stronger relationships between people. Conflicts unresolved festers and just adds pressure and mistrust on relationships. Again, we usually have different perceptions of the same circumstance. I suggested working through the conflict. Take the other person out for a cup of coffee or lunch and discuss the conflict. Often it was a miscommunication or an unintentional slight. Build the relationship, do not let the conflict destroy the relationship.

Check out a previous blog on forgiveness that involved a family story. You will enjoy that read too.

Salve For Festering Wounds

The journey is not easy, but it is worthwhile. It is necessary for healthy relationships with others in my circle of influence too.