Sparks from the Fire

Need a healing?  Start with forgiveness.

We all carry the need to forgive somebody around with us through life.  If you can’t think of anyone you need to forgive, try forgiving yourself.  Once you clean up that dark spot in your life, you’ll see healing demonstrated by the endeavor – often in physical terms.

But what really is forgiveness?  I think forgiveness comes when we truly clean up the mess.  We forgive and are forgiven when we no longer have anything to forgive.  It’s not, as some think, an act that somehow prefaces the solution of the original crime.  It only comes when the crime is solved and rectified.

The most prescient statement I’ve ever heard on the subject of forgiveness is found in the Lord’s Prayer.  Forgive us our debts (our trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us).

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I think one of the most misunderstood words in the English language is “forgiveness”.  To me, simply put, God forgives us when we, ourselves, rectify the mistake, when we truly heal the problem that necessitated the forgiveness.

If one is truly sorry for a mistake, and I see and feel the sorrow and recognize in the other person the desire to rectify the mistake, then forgiveness comes much easier.  Forgiveness comes when we understand the situation from all angles and view points and see that the person who committed the act truly regrets it and changes in their thought and actions.

I believe God works the same way.  When He, She, It recognizes that we have changed in our thought, stopped the mistake, even turned it around and resolved it, then we are forgiven.  Forgiveness of sin comes in the destruction of sin.

At one point in life I was hurt very deeply by someone I loved.  It hurt so bad that I had to leave her and get away to mend.  I couldn’t let go of the hurt.  Every day it haunted me until I just didn’t want to wake up in the morning.  I would begin to awaken and just pull the pillow over my face and refuse to face the day – and the hurt.

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