Ghosts of the Past
Nearly 400 spam emails a day necessitated a change of email address. As soon as the new address was ready, I set about notifying the people in my Contacts’ List. However, I only managed to send one email with bcc’s to about 15 people when my new address would no longer ‘send’. Unable to solve the problem myself, I have left my old address open, gone into webmail to access my new address and waited for help - which should finally arrive this afternoon.
In the meantime, a few people who received my notification emailed, letting me know they had received the information. One of those was a lady I met in 1996 in South America.We had spoken a few times, and have been in intermittent email contact ever since.
However, over the next few days, I received two emails from her into my old address. They weren’t personal emails, just general ones she was sending to her whole contact list. I thought I would let her know that she must have forgotten to change my address in her address book. I thought I’d save her the minor inconvenience of the ‘undeliverable’ notice she would receive once I closed my old address.
Her response to my email shocked me. In the middle of the few lines I had written, she wrote several lines in capitals (if you don’t know already, all capitals means she was shouting). She made some accusations, then said she would take me completely out of her contacts list.
I re-read my email, wondering what could have motivated such a response. I found one word that could have been the culprit. I realised that if a person was so inclined, they could read that word with a negative twist - something I never intended. I tried hard to find where else offence could be taken, and found nothing.
The whole thing mystified me. The woman had been a Christian for years, and her response was not something I expected from her.
The easiest thing to do in a situation like this is to respond in kind. That is, to take up offence, quickly type out an angry email and press ‘send’.
However, God has challenged me many times over the past few years about learning to rule my own spirit. So, even though I felt the pain of her unwarranted anger, I didn’t let that go any further. Instead, I forgave the lady and asked God to forgive her also.
That action then freed me to make a wise response in the right spirit. Even though she had clearly stated she no longer wanted to communicate with me, I believed I had to reach out as a peacemaker.
That act alone meant negotiating two possible problems. Firstly, she had most likely blacklisted both my old and new emails addresses. However, while I was solving my email problems, I had begun using a gmail address, so that could overcome the first problem. The second problem was the risk of receiving another abusive email from her if I attempted to communicate with her again.
I prayerfully drafted an email. I knew I had done nothing wrong intentionally. If I was guilty of anything, it was in writing that one word that could have been misinterpreted. However, I also knew that the situation was sensitive, and reconciliation was God’s agenda.
That called for humility of heart - something that doesn’t always come easy with me. So, I made sure the ‘subject’ said, ‘Apologies from Susan’ in the hope that the word ‘apologies’ would help her realise I wasn’t coming back fighting, but with my hand outstretched in friendship.
I sent the email, knowing that, should she respond, I wouldn’t receive it till I woke the next day.
When I went to my computer the next morning, I was nervous. No-one likes receiving abusive emails, and it’s especially nasty when they are unwarranted.
I had indeed received a reply. I held my breath and closed my eyes, then clicked to open the email. I quickly scanned it to get a sense for the tone of her response.
All was well! She apologised and explained that when she had read ‘that word’ (the one I thought could be a culprit), she had ‘heard’ her mother angrily yelling at her when she was a girl. That word had triggered painful memories and she could only think that I too was angry with her. She then admitted that if she had only read to the end of my email instead of reacting, she would have seen the ‘love from Susan’ and realised I couldn’t be angry with her if I wrote that.
Sadly for my friend, she is still carrying the pain of her mother’s anger and rejection. These ‘ghosts from the past, carry with them the potential to destroy relationships.
Given the right circumstance, her pain surfaced, and brought with it the kind of defensive responses she had learned as a girl. She attacked me through her email, and cut me off by deleting me from her address book.
Unfortunately, for most people, that’s where the story ends. It goes something like this: -
Jill takes offence at something Jane did or said → anger toward Jane
→ Jane takes up offence → anger toward Jill
→ Both cut off the source of anger (the other person) → Broken fellowship. No grace or forgiveness.
I am grateful though, that after I reached out to my friend, she recognised her error and took the right steps to bring a full reconciliation.
So in the end, we both responded well and fellowship was restored.
The Bible tells us, ‘Offences will come’. In other words, one of the certainties of life is that we will be tested by offences. The important thing isn’t whether we are right or wrong, but what our response to them is when they come. We have the option of picking them up, or leaving them untouched and extending grace and forgiveness.
It’s easy to pick up an offence hastily. The tragedy is that this leads to painful consequences that sometimes last for the rest of our lives.
However, when ‘ghosts of the past’ still haunt us, it makes it even harder not to pick up an offence.
We need to let God work His character in us so that we are free to respond wisely.
Let God restore your soul so you are freed from the pains of your past that can have such devastating effects on your life!
To this end:
- Choose to forgive those who have brought you offence in the past and ask God to do a work of grace in your life so you can extend grace and forgiveness to others.
- Ask God to forgive you for your sinful responses.
- Call out to God to teach you how to rule your spirit so you can respond wisely when offences come.
- Ask Him to heal your heart and restore your soul so the bad experiences of your past no longer have the power to dictate your future responses.
The change won’t happen overnight, but as you co-operate with Him, the change WILL come.
I know, because that’s what’s happened to me.