meditiation 3c: forgiveness

Meditation 3c: forgivenes

Though I couldn’t eat, I also couldn’t stop vomiting. At times I had to stop my orange beetle Volkswagen; pull over with the driver door open and vomit in the street. I then keep driving. What was coming up?
The day Barbara came home and told me that she thought she was in love with someone else. This moment, this past, kept coming up. I couldn’t keep it down. I was empty, sick, alone. We had been married for almost seven years. I had built my emotional, social and-to some degree-my professional life around our relationship. After a year of marriage counselling, we broke up.
Bitter through the deceit, lies and betrayal, I clung to my new faith. Jesus was rejected; he knew what I was feeling and going through: no home; lost of common friends; no money. It was and still is a death.
I buried myself in the scriptures searching for words that condemned Barbara. Finally, I found the words I was searching for:
“If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.” Proverbs 28:9
God would not hear her, the guilty one, only me the innocent. I shared this verse, the first I ever memorized our counsellor. Shifting in his chair, Keith said, “It would be good for Barbara to come to you, and to me, to ask for forgiveness for the deceit in and outside of our counselling. But she doesn’t have to. The only person she absolutely needs to go to is God.”
As soon as Keith said this I saw what I was asking and understood what I needed to give.
I was asking to sit in as God. I was the one to grant forgiveness. I could withhold it if I didn’t feel the sincerity of the request or if I simply didn’t want to give it. What I needed to do in order to heal was to give it over to God; to grant unconditional forgiveness before it was asked for-or even if it was never asked for.
I prayed and gave forgiveness to Barbara that night. I’ve always remembered the verse I first memorized. At the beginning of my walk with Jesus, I was ashamed that I memorized this verse. I couldn’t forget it, though I tired. Slowly, I saw this verse as being dear for me. It is my message from Him to walk in the spirit of forgiveness daily; to always hear and feel the other; to understand that all forgiveness comes from Him and not man. And thankfully it always will.

Tags: forgiveness