What Does Healed Guilt Look Like?

I think the opposite of guilt is reconciliation

I’m writing a theological epic fantasy story, and there are two main ‘beats’ in the story so far. The first beat is around shame: the main character in this section suffers from an intense sense of shame, they visit a community that’s generally wonderful but whose sins all stem from (and reify) a sense of shame, and this part of the story is around people healing from shame.

I found this part of the story incredibly easy to write. More than that, I often felt a sort of transcendent joy while writing it, or even re-reading it; I have struggled deeply with shame in my life (defined by Brené Brown as, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”), I can empathize deeply with people and societies who are gripped by it, and I know what it looks like in my own life when shame begins to heal. I could write the arc of the characters and setting in this part of the story, including both their struggles and what it looked like when those struggles were overcome and they were healed, fairly easily.

But the second ‘beat’ of the story is around guilt, and I found this section a lot harder to write.

It’s not that I’ve never struggled with guilt. I’ve done bad things in my past, and if I feel God’s forgiveness in my bones, I’m still tempted to hide or run from those memories. None of us likes being confronted with the worst things we’ve ever done.

The problem was that, while I’m familiar enough with guilt, I had no idea what it looked like to heal from guilt.

For awhile I thought that the healthy opposite of guilt was simply forgiveness: I did something bad, and I’ve been forgiven by God for it. But this was unsatisfying on a spiritual level, not to mention on a story level (is the entire point of this part of the story that the hero feels wracked with guilt until he feels God’s forgiveness? That seems rather one-dimensional).

I no longer think the opposite of guilt is forgiveness. Now, I think it’s reconciliation.

Let me explain. I think that guilt comes from a rupture in a relationship. I hurt someone, I lash out, I attack them, and now the relationship is not what it once was.

But the healing antidote to rupture is repair. The opposite of guilt, then, is not simply the other person forgiving us (or us forgiving them); the true opposite of guilt would be for us to continue in a relationship as deep and loving as if the rupture had never happened.

I like how one of my friends described his parenting strategy. If you screw up and you sincerely apologize, he told his children, then I will act as though you did not screw up. If you screw up again in the same way, at that time I will act as though this latest screw-up is the first time that you have made this mistake.

What a way to heal a relationship after the other person ruptured it.

I see this same dynamic of rupture and repair play out in my walk with God. I have sinned more times than I can count. And I used to feel as though each sin, even after I repented, somehow pulled me away from God. But as I’ve gotten to know His heart a little bit better, I no longer think that that’s the case. Now, it feels more as though the moment that I repent, He is as loving and caring towards, and present with, me as though I had never committed that particular sin.

Of course, reconciliation of the type that I’m describing isn’t always wise. Sometimes it’s not even possible. For a variety of reasons (time or space, physical safety, renewed relationship with the other person would tempt us back into being a worse version of ourselves, etc) we do sometimes need to set boundaries. I begrudge no-one a healthy boundary.

But if temporal reconciliation isn’t always possible, what can we do to heal the rupture in a relationship caused by our (or their) bad behavior?

I think that we can pray.

When I pray for someone, deeply and sincerely, it is as though our souls somehow connect. I feel as though, even if I haven’t spoken to them in years, we are almost in the same room; the deepest parts of ourselves touching, even if our bodies are not. When I pray to God to bless someone whom I have hurt, or who has hurt me, I feel in those sweet moments as though we are somehow reconciled.

It all reminds me of Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

If we cannot reconcile with everyone who has hurt us or whom we have hurt temporally, I think we can at least reconcile with them spiritually.

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