Erik Reed: Forgiving the Unforgivable

All those questions about a future that you don't control started crippling my heart. And I had never dealt with anxiety. I had never dealt with panic attacks in my life. I thought I was going crazy. I didn't know what was happening to me. I thought I was having a heart attack driving down the road. I'm like, I'm too young to have a heart attack.

That can't be it. But my heart's about to beat out of my chest, you know? That's what it felt like.

I pulled over on the side of the road and called my wife on the interstate. And I was like, I don't know what's happening to my heart. I'm sweating.

It's 30 degrees outside. My heart is beating out of my chest. And she's like, go to the hospital. I don't know.

She don't know what's happening either. And so I learned soon is like, oh, that's a panic attack. And I would irrationally have those for years ahead.

Out of nowhere, they would happen. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So not too long ago, I sat in a diner with a good friend of mine who's a dad, and his daughter was in Oxford High School walking down the hall when one of her classmates started shooting kids in the hallway. And I knew his daughter was at Oxford High School. I didn't know the details that she actually saw the shooter, realized it was a shooting and ran out of the school, got in her car and drove home. And this is a friend of yours that you coached with, coached football with?

Yeah, I coached high school football with him for a decade almost. And his question to me is, how do I trust God? How do we trust God? How do I help my daughter trust God in the middle of this kind of tragedy? When she is seeing friends shot and she's asking the questions, how does a good God allow this? Yeah, and her biggest thing was she's still afraid. It's hard for her to shut the door at night and even sleep in her bedroom.

I think she's a junior in high school. And that tragedy, like any tragedy, rocks the world. And it rocks non-believers who say, that's why I can't believe, and believers like us say, yeah, that's the reality of the world we live in. There are not easy answers to that question. And we've been discussing that already with Eric Reid, who's back in the studio with us, a pastor, and a man who wrote a book called Uncommon Trust. So if we're going to find somebody that can help us understand how do we trust God in this situation, Eric, you're the guy. So welcome back to Family Life.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm the guy, but I'm certainly a fellow traveler trying to figure it out. Yeah, and obviously we've already talked about your pastor, husband, three kids. And on our first episode, we talked about...

I want to take us back there. We don't have to go through the whole story, because again, if you missed yesterday, go listen to it, because Eric told us the whole story. But one of the things that was fascinating about your tragedy is when Caleb is born, there's a surgery that can be done that you think is going to make everything okay.

I never got to ask you this question before. It's like, okay, so the doctor botches the surgery, makes a mistake. That's, in my mind, even harder. It's like things in life happen that are out of our control, and all you can say is it's a natural disaster or something went wrong. But when a human mistake causes tragedy, not only in your life, but in your son's life, it feels like it's even harder to understand.

Talk about your feelings in that moment. I mean, how did you deal with not only the sadness, but the anger I'm guessing you had to feel? Well, we would deal with bitterness and resentment and anger for a good year after the surgery. We would replay that conversation so many times, and his demeanor, his attitude, all the things.

And every retelling, he became more of a monster in the story. And for our listeners that maybe haven't heard yesterday, the doctor unknowingly removed both kidneys. The bad kidney and the good kidney. Your newborn son is left without kidneys, and he has to be on dialysis. And he looked as if he was completely indifferent.

No remorse, no empathy. And so, honestly, we grew to hate him. We were so shattered every time we would watch our son struggle, every time he was sick, every time we would have to go back to the hospital, every time we're in a surgery waiting room, eager to hear a surgeon come out and say it went okay, and still wondering, like, did it really go okay? We would go back to that moment and that man. And I remember having dreams about what would I do if I got to run into him? I was in the army, so I wasn't always a pastor. So there was times when I was like, boy, if I found him out, just out, what would I do? Because I couldn't stand him. We even had family talking about like, let's find out where he lives.

It got to that place. And I knew it was like, no, this is not healthy. This is not healthy. It's not healthy for our hearts. Forget healthy legally.

Forget jail time. This is not good for our souls. And it wasn't. Bitterness and resentment is like drinking poison.

Every little sip is killing you. But it gives us a glimpse into how angry and how mad. You have a name for the person that caused this. It's not abstract. This is a real person. It's a face. And it's a son who is living out the implications of it. Yeah, you're looking at him every day.

So how long would you do? So over the course of that year, finally reaching the end of what I knew was healthy, I started to tell my wife, I was like, we got to figure this out. We've got to get to a place where our hearts can forgive him. Forgiveness is all over the Bible. It's like you can't even read the New Testament without hearing Jesus say something about forgiveness.

And it's all terrible stuff when you're hating somebody. You know, when you're hating somebody and then Jesus says, you know, forgive as you've been forgiven. Because if you don't, you won't be forgiven your sins.

You're like, no. You know, Peter says, how many times should we forgive somebody that's hurt us, you know, seven times? And Jesus says, no, I'll tell you 70 times seven, you know, and he's not telling you to do the math.

He's saying it's endless. You forgive. You forgive indefinitely. And then he tells a parable about a king who forgave a lesser servant, you know, a great debt. Then that lesser servant goes out and holds over the head of an even lesser servant, a lesser debt. And the king hears about it and actually puts the debt back on him. And then Jesus ends that whole story, that whole parable by saying, so it will be with you if you don't forgive those who have hurt you. And I'm just like. So I had to start grappling with, OK, what does forgiveness look like?

And here's what I realized. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person, because the reality is, is he wasn't asking for our forgiveness. We may never have the chance to see him face to face to give him forgiveness. Forgiveness had everything to do with our hearts before God. And so it could be said like this, forgiveness always begins vertically ever before it goes out horizontally.

And the way that we finally come to a place, and it wasn't a light switch, you know, it wasn't like flipping it on, flipping it off. Forgiveness was a process. It was a process of going vertically to God to say, you have forgiven me infinitely more than I've ever been asked to forgive another and really feeling that. I think as Christians, it's like, yeah, God's forgiveness of our sins.

It's like, do you really understand the gravity of that? What have you been forgiven? What have you been rescued from? I mean, I deserve eternal judgment. My life has not been lived in righteousness.

If there's a getting in on your own account, I'm going to be at the bottom of the list. And so as I looked vertically at the grace and mercy of God and forgiving me through Christ, I'm not being asked to do anything more than Christ has done for me. In fact, I'm actually being asked to do a lot less. And so I had to really keep preaching that to my heart over and over and over before I could get to a place where I could really say, I forgive him. I forgive this man. And it was a process for me and my wife together, a process then that we had to lead our family through because our bitterness just echoed out to everyone else. And so we had to say, guys, this is not honoring to God, and he's given so much grace and so much mercy.

So we're not being asked to do something that we haven't been recipients of. And so that process led us to a place of forgiving the doctor genuinely in our hearts. And truth be told, it's not one time. We have to keep choosing to forgive.

Get triggered. That's right. Even as I sit here before you, let my mind wander off into everything that surgery calls to our family. When I'm at my son's grave with my daughters, and we're talking about his life, if I let my mind wander off into, you know, he could possibly be here today if that surgery wouldn't happen. It doesn't take much for bitterness and resentment to come back. So forgiveness is a choice that you have to keep making.

And so that became our mantra. It's like we're going to keep forgiving. We're going to keep choosing to forgive. And anytime our mind starts focusing horizontally on all that he did, we're going to send them back vertically to all that Christ has done for us. And that's the only way that we can give forgiveness is it has to come from above. Were you able to see if Caleb was able to forgive you? Absolutely. Yeah, this was a process. So from the time he was little, his whole life, this was a conversation we were having, talking about suffering and sovereignty and forgiveness and trusting God's plans for your life.

It was mandatory. I mean, it could not be a part of the conversation with his whole life, because we were going to have to explain to him why he was different from his friends. Why does he got this feeding tube in his stomach? You know, why does he got all these scars on his chest? You know, why does he have to take these medicines every day? Why does he have to do all these things that are normal to him, but then he sees his friends, he's like, Oh, y'all don't have feeding tubes in your stomach? I mean, we just had to raise him understanding like, Hey, this is your story.

And this is what is so unique about you. And this is how God has worked in your life. Caleb, fortunately, never had the issue of having to forgive him because he just, he understood God had his life in his hands, even surgical mistakes. Well, I'm also imagining that watching his mom and dad, being able to forgive the doctor was a powerful model for him.

So a fascinating story that we never anticipated. So one day after finishing dialysis in the hospital, Caleb had not had a transplant yet. It was almost two. It was getting close to Tom where it was like, Hey, we're running out of time. He needs a transplant. Just for our listeners that maybe listen to the first one, they were, we kind of left them on the cliffhanger of like, wait, so what happened? So you decided we want him to live. We'll do whatever it takes.

We're going forward. So at two, he had a kidney transplant. So he ended up getting a kidney transplant. He was on a list forever, right? A national registry.

We never got a phone call. Everybody got tested. Me and Katrina got tested and neither one of us were a match. And he was having to have new surgeries all the time for new catheters because his catheters would clot off. And we were running out of spots for catheters. It was getting, I mean, that literally the last one he got the surgeon was like, I don't know if we'll get another one in, which was terrifying. It's like, well, we don't have surgery scheduled already.

So what's our options, you know? And then they retested us in a moment of desperation. And my wife came back as a match who was not previously a match. That's miraculous. It's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable. And so my wife ended up being the donor for his transplant when he was two years old. And right before that surgery happened, we were there for dialysis and I was coming down the elevator.

I'm holding Caleb in my arms and the elevator door opens and it's the surgeon that took his kidney out. Standing right in front of you. Haven't seen him in two years. And he's standing face to face. And it was one of those moments where, you know, if you see somebody, you like try to like, if you wanted to look away and pretend like you didn't see each other. We both like try to do that, but like we're literally face to face in an open elevator.

There's nowhere to go. I attempt to walk one direction and he's like going the same direction. So we even do the little dance where you try to walk. And then finally it was like, OK, this is so awkward.

We're going to have to acknowledge each other. And it wasn't like you were just some patient. He knew when he saw your eyes the same thing.

Yeah. And so I actually asked him, I said, can I talk to you for a second? So we actually stepped out and into the lobby with your son still in your arms.

Caleb's right here in my arms. And I looked at him and I said, I just want you to know that my family and I forgive you for what happened. And he broke down crying in the lobby and I broke down crying after that.

Of course, you know, I had over hydrated tear ducts that day. So it was one of those, you know, rare exceptions. Listen, we forgave him even if we never saw him again. But what it showed me was, is he had actually carried a deep burden as well. And we found out later he was a Christian surgeon.

He had actually done all kinds of missionary work on children who could never have care. And of course, it was like, of course, that's the case. And you probably had never considered the nights that he had been up just beating himself up. Because, you know, when you're bitter, you don't want to consider the other side, you know. And so, you know, with some time and some maturity, hopefully, you know, I'm able to look back and go, there's no telling why he came across that day the way he did. We were hurt.

We may have heard even things. You know, it's like you just can't even trust what you perceived on that day to be completely accurate. But even so, he broke down and he told me, he said, you have no idea how much that means to hear. And that's the last time I ever saw him. But it was transformative for me because it reminded me that we often make people into monsters.

That they're just people, you know, they're just people too. He made a mistake and he felt that mistake all the time. Just think how different that moment would have been if you were bitter. Absolutely. And you opened the elevator door and there he is. If that happened to you before, I mean, I don't know what I'm saying to him. Yeah. Or doing to him. It's so sweet of God to connect you guys, to free you both up.

That's right. Like he needed that freedom. And for us, it was, we had forgiven him, but you talk about just the weight off your shoulders. Yeah. To be able to say that to him, to look him in the face and to go, we forgive you, to see his face just break in front of me. It was a powerful lesson. It is a picture of the gospel. It is.

That's exactly right. Which forgiveness is all about the gospel. You can only forgive by the power of the gospel, right? Christ's forgiveness to you is how you can ever forgive another person. Yeah. And what you did, and as you said, you're still doing. Still choosing to have to do. It is not possible, apart from the power of God, I don't think. A hundred percent.

I mean, you can't get there. Well, if you're hoping that somebody will be forgivable, right? That they're going to come begging for mercy and forgiveness, that they're going to come to their senses of what they've done. There's no conditions that Jesus puts on our forgiving. And so when you always put it on the other to be forgivable, I think you're going to find yourself withholding forgiveness or finding a lot of excuses to withhold forgiveness.

There's some people who will never want your forgiveness who you need to forgive. I mean, if God did that for us, we're still not forgiven. Exactly.

Yeah. That's exactly right. We've never gotten to the place where we're forgivable.

We were never forgivable. That's right. What about for the person who maybe just stayed angry with God?

Yeah, I think that's a really good question. So going back to when I was with my Bible in hand and notebook in hand that day, you know, God is able to save us, but even if he doesn't. The thing that I kept reading in the Meshach Shadrach Abednego story was, after they're thrown into the furnace, he's in it. The fourth figure in the fire. There's another in the fire.

I would sing it with you, but your listeners should be spared that. You know, for somebody who had never read that, you know, there was no cliche for me to say, God's in this furnace right now. He's with us. He has the power to rescue them and keep them from ever going in it, yet allows them to go in it only to show himself to be there. What's really fascinating to me, too, is that it's not like God decided to show up. God was always there.

That's a great point. He was always with them, but fascinatingly, he became visible to them in the fire. And so they saw him. They saw him in the fire. He was always there, but the fire made him visible.

And I think that's true in life. I think God is always with us, but it's in our suffering and sorrows that he's, I believe, most visible to us. Because man of sorrows. Jesus is the man of sorrows who came and suffered. And I would argue we're never more like Christ than when we're in our sufferings, right? The one who came and suffered for us.

And so those three things immediately, you know, I'm just sitting there with my son in the room with me, and I'm going, I've got a lot to learn. Because I can grasp these with my head, but I've got to get these into my heart. The Lord showed me a few other things that I knew would guide us that day. The presence of God in that fire was on display to everybody outside the furnace, too.

The sad traps, the prefix, the governors. And the Lord made it clear, other people are going to watch y'all go through this. And so you need to be faithful. Yeah, and yet it's interesting as I read your story that, you know, you have these miracle moments. And your wife's able to give a kidney, and Caleb's going to have somewhat of a normal life. Yes. Normal compared to the first two years.

Yeah, and then you experience panic attacks and anxiety, which is so normal. But what did that look like? You've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson as they've been talking with Eric Reid on Family Life Today. We're going to hear Eric's response in just a minute. But first, we'd love to send you a copy of his book, Uncommon Trust, Learning to Trust God When Life Doesn't Make Sense. It's our gift to you when you make a donation of any amount this week to support the work of Family Life Today and become a partner with us. You can give and become a partner at familylifetoday.com, or you can call with your donation at 1-800-358-6329.

That could be a one-time gift, or you could become a partner with us and give a recurring monthly gift. Again, the number is 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. All right, now back to Dave and Ann's conversation with Eric Reid. I had all the right ideas from the text, and yet my heart would soon be under crippling panic attacks. And I think that's another reason why I'm saying it had to go from my head to my heart, because I could agree with those things, but those things weren't in my bones yet. To trust that God is with us and that that's enough wasn't in my bones yet. And so I was still fearful. I was still worried. Everything was still about what's going to happen tomorrow?

What's going to happen next month? Is he going to survive to get a transplant? What happens if he gets the transplant and it doesn't last long? Because here's what we knew. We knew from the homework we had to do, his life would be forever affected.

There's no reset at this point. And one transplant isn't going to last a lifetime, which means at some point that kidney would fail, and we'd be back in the boat of needing dialysis until he got another kidney. And all the questions of, we almost ran out of dialysis options this time. Are we going to even be able to do dialysis?

And who's going to give him a kidney? And all those questions about a future that you don't control started crippling my heart. And I had never dealt with anxiety. I had never dealt with panic attacks in my life. I thought I was going crazy. I didn't know what was happening to me. I thought I was having a heart attack driving down the road. I'm like, I'm too young to have a heart attack.

That can't be it. But my heart's about to beat out of my chest, you know? That's what it felt like.

I pulled over on the side of the road and called my wife on the interstate. And I was like, I don't know what's happening in my heart. I'm sweating and it's 30 degrees outside. My heart is beating out of my chest. And she's like, go to the hospital. I don't know.

She don't know what's happening either. And so I learned soon, I was like, oh, that's a panic attack. And I would irrationally have those for years ahead.

Out of nowhere, they would happen. And what's really interesting, when I hear you say that, so many of us think believers don't have those. Pastors certainly don't have panic attacks, but there you were. Anxiety is real. And I was ashamed of it. Once I learned what it was, for a while, I never told anybody. Because I said, I don't want anybody to think I'm crazy, you know? I don't want anybody to think like, oh, wow, he's a wreck.

He don't have his life together. And then I started to realize like, oh, actually a lot of people struggle with this. And so what would begin to unfold in the years ahead would be not only learning to deal with that, but learning to get under the root of why I was having them.

And so I didn't want to treat symptoms. I wanted to get to the root. Because so much of my anxiety was driven by leaning on my own understanding. Trying to make sense of what was happening, what was going to happen. Trying to control and cling to what the future was that I didn't have any inability to direct. And that's a hard thing to do when it's your son and his future and his health. Well, I think what you said was you were learning to trust God, but you hadn't learned to trust him in your bones yet. Yeah. And I think that's where a lot of people are hearing that thinking, I haven't learned that either.

I need to know how to do that. And we've got to find out, because we've all quoted what you said, Proverbs 3, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. We don't know what that looks like, and we don't have time for you to do it. So we've got to bring you back.

Okay. I'd be happy to come back. You've been listening to Family Life Today. If you know of anyone who needs to hear a conversation like the one Dave and Ann had with Eric Reid, you can share it from wherever you get your podcasts.

And while you're there, it'd really help if you'd rate and review us. So how do you answer the theological questions of a child who has gone through what Eric's son went through? We're going to hear how Eric handled those difficult questions tomorrow. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.