When my daughter offered to host Thanksgiving, she informed me she also intended to invite her father. I wondered how the day would go. He and I have crossed paths often at other family gatherings since the divorce.
Yet that Thanksgiving seemed to mark a turning point in our post-marriage relationship. The conversation seemed to ebb and flow easily. Perhaps it resembled the weekly Great Thanksgiving meal I’ve so often experienced in worship. Though the term “forgiveness of sins” was never spoken, it was an afternoon of forgiveness all around.
Forgiveness does not erase events of the past. Yet is does release us from the grip of hurt, humiliation, guilt and shame that often result from these events. Forgiveness is not an emotion. Forgiving and being forgiven do not depend on us feeling like forgiving someone or feeling forgiven by anyone. We can decide to be “for” giving someone another chance. We can opt to be “for” giving a person a way to move beyond the events of the past. The God we worship is a God of second chances. God gives us as may chances as it takes for us to be reconciled with each other.
This message is excerpted from “Great Thanksgiving” by Kathryn Haueisen in the November 2018 Gather magazine.
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