forgiveness

i was talking to a friend about my last blog post. our families got together last night to hang out. we met them at church and i am really enjoying our new friendship. (if you remember from a previous post i told you about them -- their oldest daughter being my oldest son's "girlfriend".)

anyway, in that post, i had asked about forgiveness. last night, she shared this quote with me "didn't god give us a sea of forgiveness? shouldn't we be able to give just a splash of it to others?". and she also shared a story with me from her experience in this area. it meant a lot to have her share from her perspective and also shed some light on my situation by using hers as an example. i love how God works through this blogging thing and also i love my new friend!!!

i did some studying on forgiveness. and i found a devotion in my bible (mom's devotional bible - niv / zondervan) entitled "choosing love" on p. 1265 that went along with this topic. the devotion written by elisa morgan (of mops international) talks about when someone has hurt us or wronged us; our forgiveness starts by choosing to love them and not to put up a defense (even though that is our first instinct sometimes). she gave a few suggestions on how to heal through forgiveness such as; 1) being intentional about choosing love 2) look at people in parts & isolate the incident that hurt 3) remember how much we needed forgiveness.

i have begun to learn that forgiveness of the person who hurt you is not dependent on their apology. an apology may never be given but forgiveness needs to be given regardless. so i am going to begin to work on forgiveness as i am commanded to do.

"be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" ephesians 4:32