This evening, I am listening to my husband paint. He is rolling colour over our walls downstairs in the silence. He never seems to need a radio or a TV on. He's content to be with his thoughts, just working. I am sitting here, staring at the Christmas tree, knee-deep in prayer and conversation with Papa, feeling a bit too honest. Is that okay?
All I can think about tonight is the fact that someone whom I once thought owed me an apology is actually owed one by me.
Isn't it funny how God can bring you full circle? You think you are full of righteous anger, you think you've been wronged, you're convinced you're owed an apology.
Over the past five years, I've changed. Scales have fallen from my eyes. I've grown in ways I never could have foreseen. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I realised that a pet grievance that I carried about with me would come knocking, like Jesus, on the door of my heart.
Instead of being able to nurse my grudge, hold my forgiveness like a trophy to be awarded, I have found my heart broken for my own conduct.
This might sound cryptic. It's because I don't want to share the details. (Is that honest enough for you?) Suffice to say, someone did something wrong but we took it as wronging us.
It wasn't about us. But we were hurt and wounded and sad. I still am, to be honest. But now, God has shown me, has opened the door of my heart to the truth, that in the end, it wasn't about them. It wasn't between us and them. It was between them and God. I have no place withholding forgiveness or not. I have no place to judge. I have no place to judge restoration or repentance in the heart of another.
All I can think about tonight is the fact that someone whom I once thought owed me an apology is actually owed one by me.
Isn't it funny how God can bring you full circle? You think you are full of righteous anger, you think you've been wronged, you're convinced you're owed an apology.
Over the past five years, I've changed. Scales have fallen from my eyes. I've grown in ways I never could have foreseen. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I realised that a pet grievance that I carried about with me would come knocking, like Jesus, on the door of my heart.
Instead of being able to nurse my grudge, hold my forgiveness like a trophy to be awarded, I have found my heart broken for my own conduct.
This might sound cryptic. It's because I don't want to share the details. (Is that honest enough for you?) Suffice to say, someone did something wrong but we took it as wronging us.
It wasn't about us. But we were hurt and wounded and sad. I still am, to be honest. But now, God has shown me, has opened the door of my heart to the truth, that in the end, it wasn't about them. It wasn't between us and them. It was between them and God. I have no place withholding forgiveness or not. I have no place to judge. I have no place to judge restoration or repentance in the heart of another.
I've been letting it go for years now. Every time I think I have forgiven and let it go, I find a fresh stab of "really? bitterness is here, too?" before feeling the Holy Spirit wrap itself around that thorn and pull it out. It stings coming out but oh, the freedom and space that I feel with it gone.
As Paul said to the Ephesians, "Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you."
I doubt I'll ever get the resolution I seek. I doubt I'll ever be able to say "I thought - and still think - you owe us all an apology. But I owe you a greater apology for my pride and my bitterness and my judgemental heart." I pray about it. And I lay my pride before God, asking him to have his way with me. Jesus, where are you taking me? Little by little, the bitterness is lifting. Every time it does, I am grieved afresh by my own blindness, my own deep need for Jesus, my own need to be saved.
These new shores of Grace are overwhelming for this ragamuffin sometimes.
As Paul said to the Ephesians, "Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you."
I doubt I'll ever get the resolution I seek. I doubt I'll ever be able to say "I thought - and still think - you owe us all an apology. But I owe you a greater apology for my pride and my bitterness and my judgemental heart." I pray about it. And I lay my pride before God, asking him to have his way with me. Jesus, where are you taking me? Little by little, the bitterness is lifting. Every time it does, I am grieved afresh by my own blindness, my own deep need for Jesus, my own need to be saved.
These new shores of Grace are overwhelming for this ragamuffin sometimes.
