“forgiven”

To be forgiven unprompted is a strange thing. Sometimes, it’s something that we really do need to be forgiven for, and then there are the times where being forgiven sets the wheels in your mind in motion.

I told you what happened not because I was looking for forgiveness or felt a need for confession, but because I know it affects you, and because I didn’t want to live a lie – whether explicitly or by omission. In fact telling the truth was something I gathered he didn’t want to happen. What happened between he and I was not something that I actively sought out, and while it was something I also could have prevented, it was not something that was my responsibility nor was it something that ought to have been expected as the minor in the relationship. I deeply regret what happened, but I acknowledge it out of a recognition of my own weaknesses and unrealistic expectation of him as a teenager. As for a betrayal, I can understand why you would see it that way. However, I understood your relationship merely as a friendship, something you all consistently affirmed. I think in a way, you expected me to understand the nature of a rather complicated relationship, which as an outsider, I wasn’t very privy to know.

That you sought his opinion first and then decided to forgive me surprised me in a way that I didn’t understand until much later. What I realized was I was hurt, for two reasons. Firstly, it means you heard his side of the story, and formed a judgment (good or bad) before hearing my side, and this pre-judgment not the forgiveness that hurts me. Secondly, you mentioned that you maintained this friendship out of concern for my spiritual well-being. Please don’t misunderstand, I am touched, but I do not want for you to be forced to maintain a charade on my behalf. I think God has a way of calling all of us home to Him, irrespective of circumstance.

The issue on responsibility, I address to no one besides God. There is an objective reality to what happened, and this knowledge is lost to man. We hold each other and ourselves responsible in varying degrees, but only God knows what measure and percentage it ought to be divided in, and only He has the mercy to relinquish punishment.