Describe who or what has most shaped your understanding of reconciliation.

The “who” and the “what” are the same…Ron.

From the first impact on August 1, 1993 until today, he is part of the story…part of the fear…the fabric…the example…the metaphor…the symbol…the promise…and the hope of reconciliation.

I first met him in the courthouse where he was being arraigned for killing my husband Chris.  He gave me a sincere apology with clarity and sorrow sown into every word.  I ached for us both, and for his mother who, through tears, held him up from behind.

We met again 15 years later in hope of reconciling what, on the surface, is irreconcilable. 

We met over 2 days through 11 hours of grueling circle time with my 3 children, 3 restorative justice circle keepers, my spiritual director and his wife.  We told stories to give a fuller picture of our circumstances, held silence, asked questions then waited holding our collective breath for insufficient answers to come.  We gave space to one another and to God, cried tears, told truths, felt deeply all that you might imagine, and bore witness to our shared regret around that fateful day, regret that alone cannot be undone.

It was over before I came to a place of forgiveness.

I left needing to do inner work to find healing, hope, and promise through the long inner journey of reconciling my own heart to the unimaginable yet real.  

I wanted to blame him, but with the fuller story I found I couldn’t.  So I retreated.  I prayed.  I wrote.  I sobbed. I felt God meet me in the center of the labyrinth, and then, God touched my wounded, blistered heart renewing life’s hope.  God healed me.  Alas, the next day, my anger surged as I considered the bondage of my loss while Ron knew freedom after prison.  The laser of my anger found God the target, not Ron.  And God met me there in the “Why?”

That poison–that corrosive acid in my soul– spilled out in my journal.  Afterward, my empty heart opened,  leaving a space for freedom to rise to the surface.  And like bubbles from the carbonated drink, God freed me.  I let go.  Miraculously, my anger floated away like dandelion seeds in the wind and I felt restored.  I stepped into joy releasing any hold on Ron.  

This forgiveness work demanded I reconcile within me what a Christian heart knows as Jesus’ invitation to wholeness.  

I realized it was never really Ron.  It was my own heart that needed to do the work of reconciliation.  I needed to allow my life to reflect God’s invitation to love deeply rather than hold bitterness, righteousness, or anger.  These were the gods before me that I clutched and worshiped. With integrity and honesty I felt grief and tears, then, let them go.

For me, reconciliation is the demanding and difficult work of reckoning with expectations, plans, and judgements, and then, acknowledging and accepting what IS.  It’s owning my resistance to my own life circumstances that causes me pain. What if I learn to accept “This”; to love what IS and release my plan to God’s mercy, truth, justice and peace?   It’s  a hard, hard journey from what I think it SHOULD be to what IS, and my resistance only slows down my freedom.