Identity - Forgiveness 9

My sister, Linda, who has had to forgive me much!

From desire to forgive we shift to "Decision to Forgive"
Paul emphasizes forgiving in Ephesians 4:31-32 Stop being mean, bad-tempered and angry. Quarreling, harsh words, and dislike of others should have no place in your lives. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.

While step 2 is a prayer for desire to forgive, step 3 is decision. An act of the will. The feeling to want to forgive may still not be very strong but a decision is made: "I choose to hold it against him no longer. I wipe his slate clean."

The writing you've done becomes a prayer list allowing the painful scenes to unfold in your mind (visualizing), feeling the devastation of it (emotions) then choosing to forgive (rationality). From one item on the list to the next.

The process is like placing the hurtful memory in a package and situating it in a hot air balloon. The balloon is anchored to the ground with scores of rope moorings. Every time the forgiving process is identified (hopefully daily) another mooring is cut loose. The deeper the hurt, the greater the number of moorings. Each loosened mooring prepares the balloon for its flight into freedom.

What will this freedom feel like, look like? The memory may remain but in a transformed state. The focus will not be the painful event but the value, the benefit personally from the painful circumstance.
Some would say there may always be some pain when the memory is relived. My counseling experience is that in complete forgiveness the pain is gone. However, the question is probably irrelevant because the issue is: when I've allowed God to complete his forgiveness work in me toward that offender, my response to the hurtful memory is "thanks," because the memory is transformed into an image of value to me. (Not thanks for the harmful event, but thanks for how God has used it for good.)

As a 12 year old I was sexually molested by a camp counselor. He was a very nurturing man - in fact he became a father figure to me over the 6-week camping period. But he contaminated it with sexual acts. I didn't realize the negative impact of it all until years later when I saw how what he had affected my sexual relationship with Ann. A seething rage grew within me. However, the forgiving process lead me to a transformed image of what he did because I saw how God used it to create in me a greater need for Him and His nurturing of me, a greater sensitivity toward meeting my wife's needs and emphasized to me the great need to appropriately nurture boys and men with whom I come in contact.

The anger is gone. The molestation memory remains, but in a positive, transformed state.


More Monday on the decision to forgive.