“Let Bygones Be Bygones”

 

When I think back to my early childhood, I do not remember my grandparents or my mother holding grudges against anyone. When grandfather’s father died, his older brother pushed him out of the family business, but I don’t recall my grandfather harboring any bitter feelings toward his brother. If he did, he never talked about it. They never talked about getting even with anyone for something that they thought a person had done to them.

If I hurt my grandmother’s feelings, I would admit I was wrong and apologize. She would accept my apology and forgive me. What I had said or done was never mentioned again. It never brough up over and over again and thrown in my face. “Let bygones be bygones” was one of the sayings I often heard repeated when I was a child. When my grandmother forgave me, I was forgiven and that was that.

I don’t understand how someone can hang onto ill-feelings toward someone else for decades, never letting go of the grievance, real or imagined, they held against that person.

It is sad when the person who caused a hurt seeks to inflict further hurt on us. This may be payback for something we may have said or done, or they thought we said or done. They may be trying to punish us, to manipulate us, or to control us.

On the other hand, they may be trying to keep us at a distance because they don’t know what to make of us and we arouse their anxiety.

It is said, “We hurt the ones we love.” This article, “8 Reasons Why We Hurt The Ones We Love The Most,” https://www.youniversetherapy.com/post/8-reasons-why-we-hurt-the-ones-we-love-the-most, explains why we “are more likely to be aggressive to the ones we know better and love the most.”

There is always the possibility that reason they are furious with us is our suggestion that they may feelings toward us when they do not recognize themselves as having any feelings for us at all. To get the point across, they are going to give us a rough time and ignore us as far as circumstances permit.

With their actions, they are saying, “How can you think that!! See, I hate you!! You think you know everything, but you don’t understand anything about me!!” They are going to give us a good clobbering one way or another.

There is also the possibility that they have in their own minds devalued us as a human being so they can discard us. People will turn a human being into a “thing” in their minds before they get rid of them. They will choose to see them as something less than human. They may get encouragement from others.

If they are a Christian, the way they treated us fell below the standard for treating a fellow human being, much less a brother or sister in Christ.

Jesus set that standard in his teaching and with his example. Be kind to others as God is kind to us. Love your neighbor as ourselves. Love our enemies. Do good to them. Treat them as we would want to them to treat we. Forgive others, not once or twice, but so many times that we loose count. Love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Here I must pause. I don’t know the situation in which they may have found themselves. I don’t know all the circumstances. 

I have splinters in my own eyes that I must remove before I offer to help them take the plank out of their eye. I must temper with gentleness and kindness any conclusions that I draw. I must generously make allowances for them where allowances are called for. 

Above all else I must keep on loving them as God loves us, forgiving them as God forgives us. The little child in me, the child that Jesus placed in the midst of his disciples, says, “Don’t forget that they are a child too—a child like yourself, a child that feels hurt and pain, a child who wants acceptance and love.

It is time to take more seriously my grandmother’s words, “Let bygones be bygones.” I pray for God’s grace to do just that. Let bygones be bygones.