Why Forgiveness is Important, Even in Fiction

 

Forgiveness is a major theme in my novel, Under the Tulip Tree. I appreciate the way Publishers Weekly put it in their review of the book: the grace of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness isn't an easy subject to write about, mainly because the act of forgiving isn't always easy. It's especially hard when the person who needs forgiveness extended to them has done the unspeakable to you or to someone you love. 

Such is the case with the character of Frankie in Under the Tulip Tree. In the book, she is a 101-year old woman who was enslaved before the Civil War. It's now 1936 and she's been asked to tell her story--the only story she has to tell-- to a young White woman who works for the Federal Writers' Project, a real government program that sent out-of-work writers across 17 states to collect first-hand stories from former slaves. Those stories--more than 2,300 of them plus over 500 photographs--are now archived in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. 

In my research for the book, I read well over one hundred narratives (and listened to a handful of unforgettable recordings), captured by the raw honesty of the stories these former slaves told. It was that kind of honesty I hoped to portray through the character of Frankie. One of the things that struck me as I read through the first-hand accounts of life in bondage was the lack of wallowing in the pain. They simply told their life's story, with poignant details that left me brokenhearted. 

So, as I set out to write the book, one question demanded an answer.

Was it possible for a former slave to truly forgive the people who'd abused them?

I point you to Frederick Douglass, a former slave who escaped slavery and became one of the most famous authors and voices in the anti-slavery movement. His writings are fascinating and eye-opening, and they make me wish I could have heard him give one of his many passion-filled speeches. 

Yet despite Frederick Douglass's vehement words against slavery, he did an astonishing thing.

He forgave. 

"How can I claim to love Jesus Christ and still reserve for myself the right to continue to hate?" he told a crowd at the Metropolitan AME Zion Church in Washington DC. At the time, he was speaking of his hatred for Thomas Jefferson, whose words about freedom in the Declaration of Independence rang false to him. But his forgiveness didn't end with Jefferson. In his later years, Douglass sought out Thomas Auld, his former owner, and forgave him for the mistreatment he'd endured during his time of bondage. "I entertain no malice toward you personally,” Douglass wrote in a letter to Auld some years before their meeting. “There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant…I am your fellow-man, but not your slave.” 

As I studied Douglass's life and words, I wondered how many of the millions of slaves came to the same place of forgiveness as he did. The person who'd endured slavery until the very moment it was abolished. Who'd had unspeakable things done to them by another human being, simply because their skin color was different. Were they ever able to forgive their former masters and those who'd abused them?

There is no possible way for me to fully appreciate or understand what it meant to live in bondage. To grasp how utterly helpless enslaved people were against the legal ownership of a human being. To watch their children and loved ones brutally abused, sold away, and used in the most heinous ways. In writing Frankie's story, I in no way cast any judgment on an individual who might have taken their hatred to the grave with them. The truth is, I wouldn't blame them one bit.

Yet forgiveness must play a role in the story, because forgiveness is part of the human story. The story between God and man. Forgiveness isn't something any of us deserve, yet it was granted to us freely when Jesus went to the cross, carrying every sin known to man. All my sins were forgiven before I was ever born. Yours too. Forgiveness isn't something we can ever earn. It has to be freely given by the one who's been wronged, no matter if the person who wronged you ever admits it or seeks forgiveness.

Frankie's journey to forgiveness is inspired by Frederick Douglass and others who chose not to let hatred consume them, despite being completely justified in that hatred. Her journey isn't an easy one. It's filled with pain, anger, resentment, and struggle against what we know God is asking us to do. But it's a journey that must be taken by each and every one of us at some point in our lives. The circumstances that lead us on this journey will be different from one person to the next, but the peace and freedom our souls long for won't come until we set our minds on forgiveness.

If you'd like to read Frankie's story in Under the Tulip Tree, visit my website for purchase options or click the book's cover on the right of this page.

For further reading about people who forgave, visit:

• Forgiveness Forty-Eight Years After John Lewis Was Attacked (article)

• Cousins: Connected through slavery, a Black woman and a White woman discover their past—and each other (book)

• A father forgives his son's murderer (article)

A few years ago we were in Rochester, New York, and had the honor of visiting Frederick Douglass's grave. 

Every blessing,

~Michelle

When Easter Makes Sense

Getting older has an upside. It's called Wisdom! When I was a child and even a young adult, I didn't truly "get" Easter. I knew Jesus died on a cross even though he wasn't guilty of anything, and I knew he rose from the dead on the third day. I believed he did it for us because of his great love, yet the full meaning of what it was really about escaped me.

Now that I'm old and wise (heh heh), I get it. But I didn't acquire this understanding just by celebrating birthdays. It came from reading the Bible. Sounds simple, and yet it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I truly became a student of the Word. Imagine my utter amazement when I discovered that reading the Bible from cover to cover--from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21--makes things soooo much clearer than picking and choosing verses and books to read. The Bible truly is a story, and as a writer of fiction, that really speaks to me. I wouldn't pick up a novel and start reading from the middle or flip to this page or that page. I'd read it from Chapter One, page one, and continue on until I reached the end.

Don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying the Bible is fiction. Far from it! But it IS God's story. A story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And when you read this amazing story, you can't help but see the order--the plan--that was in place from the very first four words:

"In the beginning GOD..." Genesis 1:1

The word for GOD used here is Elohim. It's plural. Why? Because God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all present at the creation. When God made man, he said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." Genesis 1:26

John 1:1-3 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men."

When Jesus left heaven to come to earth, he knew it was temporary. He knew he'd only live a mere thirty-three years before he would die a horrific death on a cross, yet he came willingly. He lived in relative obscurity the first thirty years of his life, earning a living with his hands, and obeying the Laws of God. Yet he had a far greater purpose. When John the Baptist saw him, he spoke truth and prophecy about Jesus: "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." John 1:29

Those words came true when Jesus was crucified. He was nailed to the cross at 9:00 AM, the time of the Jewish morning sacrifice. He committed his spirit into the the hands of God the Father at 3:00 PM, the time of the Jewish evening sacrifice. When he spoke, "It is finished," (John 20:30) he became THE sacrificial Lamb for all humanity. He bore all our sins--every single one that I've committed, and that you've committed, and that every person who ever lived committed!--offering us reconciliation with God in a way that had never happened before. And God himself acknowledged this new relationship, this new covenant, by tearing the veil--a huge, thick curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies, the place where he dwelt, from the rest of the temple--making it possible for us to approach him, to know him, as very few had experienced up until this point.

My prayer for you on this Easter Sunday is that you will know the truth of the cross and the empty tomb, and that the truth will set you free! Free from sin, free from shame, free to live with hope and joy, free to forgive and be forgiven, free to give and receive, free to die in the knowledge that Jesus has prepared a new home for you where you will dwell in God's presence for all eternity. 

That, my friend, is Easter. 

May you and yours have a blessed day celebrating all that Jesus is!!

HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

~Michelle