Author of Cold Tangerines, Bittersweet and Bread and Wine, Shauna Niequist addressed every college students’ favorite subject, relationships, in the Gathering Tuesday morning.
Niequist’s plan was to talk about the “secret and the heart of all relationships.” With that opening statement, she grabbed the audience’s attention.
She followed up that statement later on with the one sentence that she feels the need to say whenever she is at a college campus.
“Whoever you are, male or female, freshman or senior, single or dating or engaged or married,” Niequist said. “You are significant with or without a significant other.”
Niequist made the statement to remind students how significant they are, and that being a part of a couple does not make a person more important, and also to remind students that everyone’s life timeline is different.
After making her opening remarks, Niequist’s got to her main point of discussion, the secret of relationships, which she says is forgiveness. Forgiveness when dating, in the family and with friendships.
Niequist stressed the importance of friendships at this time in a person’s life.
“Worry less about dating and invest more in friends,” Niequist said.
While talking about friendships, she made the point that even those will not last unless forgiveness is active in the relationship. She said that conflict is inevitable, and the only way to maintain those relationships is by being able to forgive.
“When brokenness happens in a relationship it doesn’t mean it’s over, it means it’s normal,” Niequist said.
The next thing Niequist addressed was how to forgive and what it means to be a forgiver. She says it is the essence of Christianity.
“At the heart of christianity is forgiveness,” Niequist said. “If you are a Christian what that means is that you accept forgiveness from a perfect Holy God, and so it follows that we who have been forgiven have to be forgivers.”
She explained that God built forgiveness into the system of Christianity. That God forgave people and therefore in order for people to be free they must forgive others. She made sure to explain that learning to forgive is a process that can only be done with help from others.
“How do we forgive? We forgive over and over with help,” Niequist said. “If you expect for something that has been breaking and occupying your heart for years to be gone overnight it won’t happen. You’re going to do it with help.”
Niequist concluded by reiterating that learning to forgive is a process that takes time and help from counselors, God and family.
“When we forgive, we forgive with help over and over,” Niequist said. “These are the questions: Who has wronged you? What would it look like to be a forgiver? Because how badly do you want to be free?”