It is hard to write about forgiveness, isn't it? Well, it was for me. I couldn't think of what to write, but it came to me in a whisper..."You can't write about forgiveness, because you are locked up inside...you are afraid...YOU have glacier-sized, Titanic-sinking unforgiveness and bitterness and your heart is like an open grave."
WHO can understand how to forgive? I think I have forgiven, and it all comes rushing back, needles threading my senses, wound open and seeping.
All these failings, all these tears, all this anger at myself, at people and loved ones who hurt me, these thoughts and fears that tear me up inside...make my world collide, a kaleidescope of pain.
How did I get here? Is He really mighty to save? When it is 1 am and I am all alone with the sin (failings, gracelessness, hurt, destruction) of the day, and I feel the damage deep--stirring deep within--when I have walked this desert 'round and 'round for all these years--have cried all these tears, banged fist on table and on His chest--the very chest of God--and pointed my finger at Heaven, said "WHY?"--is He the Comforter then?
When I've flung so many words, took it out on those who don't deserve, innocent little lives are hurt and those who are the cause go unscathed--is He the God of vengeance and justice then?
Why does it always seem that way? Like David, when he asked God why his enemies flourish while he suffers? I think David had a sensitive heart, and he held it inside--maybe he found it impossible to be tougher in that pit-place.
He went down there and he ached and wallowed in his misery. I wonder how long it took him to see that he had to forgive himself, and the enemies who had caused him pain?
****My dad after triple bypass open heart surgery--I'm so glad
that he is still with us, that I forgave, and that he asked
I need someone to tell me--HOW do I forgive when the pain swims around in my head, it pounds with the echos of the years...and the older I get...the louder the voices pierce and torment.
As I find myself lost and discover that it is these voices of pain that are causing me to lose my way, these voices that live with me every day...when friends, family, everyone I trust disappoints, when I am told that I'm not good enough, and I hear it over and over--from the most precious ones of Christ who are supposed to help support, uphold, and advocate--how do I let go? When the answer to every prayer seems to be "No"?
When in my grief, sorrow, and pit-dwelling, I blaze a path of destruction through my home, and my tongue lashes out bitterness and not grace and not once, but habitually and it is in this place that I can't seem to get hold of myself--is He near then?
And this tugs at me from deep within...from where the throbbing pain lives...from within the walls of the throes of childbirth--an agony carried with me--my burden--the pricking thing that I can't let go--won't drop. It smarts and shoots and my stitches come undone, and I'm a mess all over again, and the cataclysmal blame massacre ensues.
When will I be free? Why did God allow this hurt? Why does He let it continue and why does He not stop them? Will He let it break me? I think I'm too easily broken--and I see the pity and disgust, maybe disdain in eyes. Is that the result He wants--for me to be completely broken and despised like His Son?
Maybe, maybe, that is His purpose.
"God does all these things to a man, twice, even three times, to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him." (ref: book of Job)
"It will be (God's) personal agenda to make sure you are miserable enough in that...pit to where you are ready to say 'I'm ready to do anything to get out!'"
"I beg you to see that your enemy has a tremendous investment, not only in digging and camoflouging a pit in your pathway, but also you should tumble down, and in convincing you to stay there after you fall in. (Satan) knows in this pit you will feel powerless to stand up against him. There you are vulnerable to him and out of the way."
"I felt like there have been times He (God) said of my own life, 'How much fire do you want me to turn up in this place? How hot do you want this to get?'"
--Beth Moore, on Life Today talking about her book, Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance
So strange that I already KNEW this...I mean, I have the theology...I understand in my head that all things come from God--the good, the bad, the in-between, the desert times, the trials and hardships--I understand it in my head, but will someone please explain it to my heart?
Maybe, just maybe, the only way that I can have it be understood in my heart, let go, quiet the echos of pain that follow me, and forgive--really be free of this thing--is to lay it at the foot of the cross. And maybe God is saying to me--"How much fire do you want me to turn up in this place?"
Maybe He is turning up the fire so that I will claw and dig from my pit toward the foot of that sacred tree.
That sacred tree...Oh how precious, oh how I cherish that bloody tree, where the One Man hung for all the world to despise...all for me, for me...all so I can find forgiveness.
Not only that, but He did more for me--in the cross, I find all of my answers--He IS Comforter, He IS a God of vengeance and justice. He IS mighty to save, and He is near. And I must leave it all, right here at His feet.
I pray that I can grasp this concept and live it well that my children will live it even better, offering forgiveness to one another easily....
And maybe a little forgiveness for me as well:
******Lilly at 7 mo.
Below is a video of Darlene Zschech singing "At The Cross"--if you would like to watch--it is beautiful--captures this idea in song... Listen to the words and just let them wash over you...
Another video Here with good truth in it...I needed the truth found here this week--just soaked it in, and I encourage you to as well, especially if you are struggling with forgiveness...
You can go over to Ann V's site to see more stories like this, or share your own...
