The everlasting fact of God’s grace can help us to consider forgiveness as well as why we are or are not ready to forgive.
I am relieved knowing that God can and has, willingly forgiven me of things I can’t even speak of. In other cases, God’s outsized forgiveness for others has angered me in its unfairness. Personal and historical actions involving cruelty and premeditated harm can be too excruciating to even consider forgiving. An easy breezy call to forgiveness is disrespectful and re-traumatizing. If the thought of forgiveness leaves you red-hot angry, I’m not trying to convince you that you shouldn’t be. Instead, I will share a question, a gem that cooled my own red-hot anger: Is your anger from a place of hate or from a place of love?
Forgiveness is a surprise, waiting for you even when you are not ready. As you continue to walk with God, consider picking up the gift of God’s forgiveness for you.
This message is excerpted from “Facets of forgiveness” by Denise Rector in the November 2018 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Isaac Watts, hymnwriter, 1748.
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