Pastor and author Esau McCauley tells the following story about learning to forgive:
Growing up, I had good reason to loathe my father. He was abusive and struggled with addiction. He cycled in and out of jail, and that sent my family tumbling down the economic ladder.
Before he died when I was in my mid-30s, I realized that my sense of my own righteousness had callused into something cruel. I didn’t want him to change, because his poor behavior formed a central part of my identity. He left his family; I built one. He was addicted to drugs; I barely drank alcohol. As long as I compared myself with him in this way, I needed his brokenness to provide direction. I was not running toward the good; I was fleeing him.
I remember the day that my father apologized to me. We hadn’t spoken in years but were now reunited at my sister’s wedding. During a lull in the rehearsal, I asked him the questions that had been with me my whole life: “Why did you leave, and why did you stay away?” He replied, “Son, I don’t rightly know. After I left, I saw that you all were doing better without me, so I stayed away. I’m sorry.”
What shocked me most was how difficult it was to accept this new version of him even as he tried to make amends. Who was I if I wasn’t a person with a wicked father? I was confronted with a miracle that I was not sure I wanted. Forgiving my father forced me to create a positive, and not merely a reactive, vision of my life. It also taught the valuable lesson that not all lost causes are irredeemably lost.
