Today I'm actually feeling the forgiveness that I've been choosing to give everyday for quite a while now. Mom has this spiel about how forgiveness is a choice that we make to make us okay and that the person who hurt us isn't really the important person in this exchange. We forgive so that our relationship with God can be open and so that we don't have this festering bitterness that separates us from God. We choose to forgive daily, despite our anger, our hurt, and our blatant hate for whats been done to us. And when we continuously choose to forgive God takes the junk in our hearts and he makes it so that eventually we can say..
I believe that justice has been served. That I can still place my trust in humanity. That it is not and never was my responsibility to prescribe justice, but that it has been done. I believe that God's going to soak this person's heart in grace and that God will teach him forgiveness. I believe that God will free him from his past. I believe that God is healing my family, growing us, and knitting us closer together. I am not tied to my stories, I am tied to God's goodness, and mercy, and love that is wholly expressed through the story of Jesus and God's grace.
I get to be defined by God's love and that's freeing.
Psalm 84
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca (meaning weeping),
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty;
listen to me, O God of Jacob.
Look upon our shield, O God;
look with favour on your annointed one.
Better is one day in your courts, than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For the LORD God is a sun and a sheild;
the LORD bestows favour and honour;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
