She Needs You to Forgive Her

Got to Let It Go    by Kris Rasmussen

Do You Remember the Time

Poised strategically in an aisle seat toward the back of the sanctuary, I scanned the congregation for her signature widow’s peak and cascading curly hair. Word on Music Row was that Amy Grant had been popping up to do worship at the end of Belmont Church’s Saturday night services lately and I was there for the free concert. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman with curly-q 80s-high hair. She was standing under an exit sign wrangling a fussy toddler.  But it wasn’t Amy. It was Shelly, a former roommate, and someone I never wanted to see again.   

If These Walls Could Speak

Straight out of college, I moved to Nashville not to pursue music, but to pursue theater and stand-up comedy. (Yes, I know, but at the time it made total, complete sense to me.) I found my obligatory office job to pay the bills while struggling for my art and moved into an apartment with a girl, Shelly, who I met at a church singles group. Shelly made me laugh and liked all the same music, movies, and clothes that I did, I couldn’t imagine us being anything but the best of roomies. It took several weeks before I realized there was a third entity in our living situation, her bi-polar disorder.

The nights that she stayed up all night cleaning after weeks of piling up dirty clothes and shoving filthy dishes under the bed didn’t alarm me too much.  (I was hardly a neat freak myself.)The weekend she took me and her two children (she had limited visitation) out to Opryland USA and paid my way for rides, concerts, and junk food seemed sweet and generous. Well, until Monday morning when I received a phone call at work from one of the elders of our church. Shelly had asked him for rent money because I couldn’t pay my half.  The problem was, I had given her my half of the rent a week ago.

The situation escalated. She continued to go on spending binges and out-all-night-doing-who knows-what-binges. She had confided in me by this time that she struggled with bi-polar disorder, but did not like her meds and felt if God was God, he would heal her.

The chaos came to a head when her landlord discovered I was living in the apartment with Shelly – a fact that violated Shelly’s lease, another detail kept from me. The landlord told Shelly she was being evicted for violating her lease and I came home late that night to find all of my belongings strewn in the lobby. Just like that. I was locked out my apartment and homeless. I found a payphone, called a friend, and she sent her husband to help me stuff my items in garbage bags and drove me to their house to spend the night.

That was the last time I saw Shelly until two years later that night at the church.

Father's Eyes

 The service was almost over – which meant Amy Grant might be closing out the worship that night because, well, this is Nashville, after all. One rousing rendition of “El Shaddai” and I would make my escape.

That’s when I heard the still, small voice I had come to recognize as God. She needs you to forgive her. Trying to find the internal mute button, I ignored that voice as I forced my eyes away from Shelly to search again for any sign of Amy Grant hiding in one of the pews ahead of me. I am not going to say I am sorry. I did nothing wrong. She needs to apologize to me.  

She needs you to forgive her, repeated the still, small voice.

Enough. I was not going to speak to Shelly.  I decided to leave the service early and miss Amy Grant.  So I stood up and looked for a different exit, one far away from the one Shelly blocked, and she saw me. We made that kind of eye contact you can’t pretend didn’t just happen. The second her eyes caught mine, she ran forward to hug me, toddler in tow, tears in her eyes.

“I am so sorry”, she whispered to me.

I hugged her – reluctantly -back. “I know,’ I said. “I forgive you.”

Good. I had done my job. But Shelly wanted to keep the awkward side hug going so we stumbled out into the church foyer. Shelly had lost her job, became pregnant again, moved away from Nashville, but was in town visiting her kids. She was trying to put the pieces of her life together. It was slow going. But she was on her meds and she was trying. I hugged her again, meaning it this time, and told her how happy I was for her, how thankful I was God arranged for us to cross paths again.

I Will Remember You

 No, I never saw Shelly again. We didn’t keep in touch. We didn’t need to renew our relationship to experience reconciliation. Reconciliation took only a moment, the moment when I did not just hear God, but actually listened to what He was saying.

 As Shelly and I talked that night, I realized God wasn’t telling me I was wrong. Or that I had to say I am sorry.  Or even that if I wanted to be a good Christian, I had better forgive her or else.  My defensive posture toward the past said all that.  God simply wanted to give Shelly the opportunity to receive forgiveness and me the opportunity to be free of my righteous indignation. Yes, the Bible calls us to forgiven even to seventy- times seven , but I have found it just as helpful  in my Christian walk to remember that reconciliation can happen in all kinds of unexpected, uncomfortable moments, especially if Amy Grant music is involved in anyway.