“I can’t forgive her.” My friend’s voice is thick with tears as we talk over the phone. “All my life she’s hurt me. I can’t go back into a relationship with her because all she’ll do is hurt me again.”

Years upon years of broken relationship paved the road these two people had traveled. But there wasn’t a lot of road left for one of them. None of us live forever, and this other person was old. And alone. And desperate for reconciliation.

I longed to farm peace between these hurting people. To plant seeds of hope and forgiveness and love where there was such an endless field of heartache.

After praying and listening to my friend, I talked with her about forgiveness.

Every Christian knows forgiveness isn’t an option. Nor is it a decision based upon the offense. God commands us to forgive, no ifs ands or buts, we must forgive.

Yet we all understand forgiveness isn’t free. “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot. Burn for burn. Wound for wound. Stripe for stripe,” Exodus 21:24-25. Life for life, the Old Testament assures us.

But as we keep reading into the New Testament, into the life of Jesus, there it is written in red. Blood red: “If you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” Matthew 6:15.

“But how can I forgive her? I can’t go back into a relationship with my mother,” said my friend on the phone.

“Maybe you don’t have to go back into a close relationship with her,” I countered. “I heard on the news awhile back a man who offered forgiveness to the drunk driver who killed his child. I doubt a deep relationship developed after this between the father and drunk driver. I don’t think relationship and forgiveness necessarily go hand in hand. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they just don’t.”

A thick silence met my statement. Then a sigh, a long, deep sigh across the miles. Because this friend is in Kentucky and here I sit in California, the phone cradled against my ear as I stare out the window at bluebirds resting on the fence.

I’ve heard horses sigh this way. After riding them for awhile a horse will accept the rider with a deep sigh. A big release of air from the horse’s belly. My grandma, who ran a horse stables and rode horses all her life, called it, “Blowing out the butterflies.” I love this saying: Blowing out the butterflies.

What if we let our butterflies of unforgiveness go? Just sighed them out and away? Far, far away?

But here’s the thing, to get that big sigh of release from a horse you need a competent rider. Someone to take the reins and take control. Horses need to trust and relax before they can release their strength to a rider.

I told my friend to trust God and to give that unforgiveness up. To think of forgiveness as a gift. God gives you the gift of forgiveness and you hand this forgiveness onto the person who needs it in your life. You can’t hold onto the forgiveness God gives you. It must be passed on. Again and again, passed to the next person in need. Because its been given to you. When you stop giving away the forgiveness God gives you, everything dams up. You become bound. Like a bound up horse.

I refuse to ride a bound up horse. I can feel it in a horse’s body as soon as I climb into the saddle. That horse is not going to surrender to a rider. I don’t ride horses like that. Horses like that hurt people. And hurt themselves. They’re dangerous creatures.

“You’re setting yourself free when you forgive,” someone once told me. “You chain yourself to the person you can’t forgive.”

Who wants to walk around chained to a person who has hurt them?

But what about justice, you say? What about that person paying for their sins against you?

When we become God’s child, He pays for all our sins. But a stipulation of paying for all our sins is that we accept that God pays for his other kids’ sins too. Even the kids we don’t like. And if that person who hurt us doesn’t become God’s kid, they will pay in the end. Pay dearly for hurting us. Hell is a real place.

Someone always pays for sin. Always.

I have children. They are mine. And when they break something, I pay for it.

God has paid the price of your forgiveness. And the price of those you need to forgive. So you don’t have to worry about it any longer. Let Jesus take the reins of your life. Blow out your butterflies. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Luke 6:37.