Dr. Hans Selye was a famous Canadian scientist who was a true pioneer in discovering the impact of emotions on a person’s health. He wrote 30 books on the subject. At the end of his life Selye sought to summarize all his research. He concluded that anger, bitterness, and vengeance as the emotional responses to our circumstances that do us the most harm. And the problem is that most angry, bitter people do not know how to overcome these harmful emotions.
A perfect illustration of this truth is a story told by Rebbeca Pippert, a Christian writer who took a class at Harvard in counseling and psychology. One day she heard the professor sharing a case study in which a particular man’s hatred for his mother had destroyed his life. She recall’s:
One of the courses I audited at Harvard was called “Systems of Counseling.” We were looking at a case study in which the therapist . . . helped the patient uncover a hidden hostility toward his mother.
. . . Then the professor began to proceed to the next case. Mustering my courage, I raised my hand and said, “. . . Let’s say the patient returned a few weeks later and said, ‘I’m so relieved to understand what was bothering me. My mother did things that provoked my hostility. But now I’d like to get beyond my anger. I’d like to be able to love her and forgive her. How do I do that?’ How does psychodynamic psychotherapy help a person with a request like this?”
There was silence. The professor answered, “I think the therapist would say, ‘Lots of luck!’ . . . To ask that his hostility magically disappear isn’t realistic. He’ll have to learn to live with it and hopefully not be driven by it . . . If you are looking for a changed heart, I think you’re looking in the wrong department.”
What he said stunned the students. The professor was saying that science can never give anyone a forgiving heart. Science can tell you what it is, but it can never tell you what ought to be.
When it comes to guilt and forgiveness and seeking to determine what is right and wrong, you have to leave the world of science and enter into the realm of faith and that which involves a person’s spiritual life.
Probably the most moving story I have ever read on the power of forgiveness is from a letter written to Dr. James Dobson, from a woman who had been listening to his radio program. She shares her story with Dobson in these words (edited for brevity):
In 1991, my beautiful three-and-a-half year-old daughter was accidentally shot in the head and killed by the eight year-old boy who lived next door. Needless to say, my life came to a screeching halt. My daughter lay dead in my front yard, and my five year-old son had witnessed the entire thing. My life went from normal and routine and beautiful to a complete mess, filled with psychiatrists for both my son and myself, near divorce over the next couple of years due to stress, and thoughts of suicide for myself – as well as plotting and planning how I would kill not only the little boy who shot my daughter, but also the entire family. I felt justified. I felt that I should do it.
Well, it’s been almost four years now. I never did harm the family next door, nor did I harm myself. Instead, I got down on my hands and knees after trying to make it on my own, and I asked Jesus into my heart. I told Him I wasn’t the supermom, superwife, superhuman being that I thought I was. I couldn’t do it on my own anymore. Once I prayed that prayer, Jesus started to work in my life. He’s still there – so powerfully, in fact, that I can almost feel His breath sometimes. He’s that close to me.
I had had my tubes tied after my daughter’s birth in 1987. In 1992 I went into surgery to have them untied. After several procedures that didn’t work, I turned to in vitro fertilization. I was thirty-nine years old when they did the embryo (from my egg and my husband’s sperm) implant with five fertilized eggs. Three of them adhered to my uterine wall. It was confirmed. I was pregnant with triplets.
She goes into great detail to explain the complications of her pregnancy, and how she was advised to abort one of the children, which she refused to do. She then shares:
On June 11, 1994 (which was the anniversary of when we buried my precious daughter and said goodbye to her for the last time), I gave birth to three absolutely beautiful, perfect boys. Their birth weights were an astonishing 6 pounds, 14 ounces; 6 pounds, 6 ounces; and five pounds, eight ounces. “Baby A” is our son, Sean Michael. He’s gorgeous and full of life. Every time I hold him in my arms, I think that he would have been the one who was most easily accessible. He is the one we would have lost had I not stood firm on my convictions.
Oh yes, and one more thing. I mentioned that God is working so powerfully in my life. Let me just end this letter by telling you that the people next door – the parents of the little boy who shot my little girl – are now the godparents of Sean Michael. Tell me God isn’t alive and working in my life!
Please know that forgiveness is for the forgiver. It will release you from those emotions that will steal your joy and will destroy your ability to truly love others.
Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.
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