Forgive. Rinse. Repeat.

Once upon a time, I held a grudge.  A big one.  Against an entire family.

This was a family- two teen girls, a mom and dad- whose words

(whispered amongst the body of believers, about me...)

were knives, and hammers, destroying work I was trying to accomplish, tearing me down personally, professionally, relationally.  Do you know people who paste on smiles, and speak words of affirmation to your very face, and yet turn to rip you to shreds when they think you're gone?

I knew them.  I was a leader among them and could not retaliate.  And Jesus told me not to anyway.  I absorbed the hate and the hurt, but it festered, even amidst prayers and pleas to release it.  I received letters, with words couched in Christian-ese, insults thinly veiled, and letters went to others giving complaint and lies and turning my ministry into something I needed to defend.  Who lets their teens write scathing letters such as those?

I was weary.  I was filled with a poison I couldn't drain.  The feeling of betrayal seeped into my bones and made me weak.

Every day, on my way home, I passed their house.  Every day I would look at their home, and their flowers, and their horses, and their cars, and their facade of a life and I would bubble up with hate.  It's ugly to admit it, but the truth often is.


I prayed, as I cried, for the time to come when I could pass their house feeling nothing.  A peaceful nothing.  A lack of pain.  Maybe even wish them well.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” 


Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

And I passed by their house over and over and over and over and over again.  For a year.  Maybe Jesus didn't mean forgiveness for seventy-times-seven offenses, but that when someone really wrongs you, you must forgive every day- over and over- the same offense until He can work with you to release it.


What if the process of forgiveness is not a one-time occurrence.  What if forgiveness is a renewal every morning?  Every hour?  Every moment?  Until you can take it to the cross, and truly leave it there.  And never look back.

What if we are to grant our own new mercies to whomever offends us, just as He grants new mercies to us.

I wrestled with God in this.  I was justified in my anger.  He said He was justified in His anger at my sin too.  I said I could never look at them without hatred in my heart.  He said "They are, too, in my image.  See Jesus in them."  I wept, I knelt, I breathed out the stale, bitter air of self-righteousness and resentment.  I inhaled peace.  I embraced the Father's love.

I met with the family.  I granted forgiveness.  I asked for forgiveness.  I healed.

God's way is always best.  Why did I doubt?

I still drive by their house.  A house that once spoke pain, now speaks to me of God's faithfulness in my darkness.


Forgive and the Father will forgive you.  A command, not a suggestion.

Forgive.  Rinse.  Repeat.


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