Learning to forgive others for the wrongs that they have done to you, or especially, to those you love, is difficult. It doesn’t seem to come easy. It goes against the fiber of human nature.
I know that I have had this problem in the past and still fight against it to this day. I could give you a list of some of the wrongs that have been done to me. I could give you a much more extensive list of the hurts, slights, and down right bad things that have been done to my children. I used to jokingly say, you can do whatever (fill in the blank) to me and I will be okay with it, but if you do it to one of mine, I will come after you.
I won’t give you the long list, but I will tell you about one incident that sticks and burns in my mind years later. It involved one of my children.
My eldest daughter was only in (Christian) preschool when I received a telephone call from someone who identified themselves as a local police officer. She told me that there was a report of sexual abuse at the preschool my daughter attended. She then asked to speak to my child. I was a little surprised because who would talk to a young child without the child’s parent being present on the phone? I refused but said I would be happy to come to the station with my daughter and we could all talk together.
I was right to do so as the woman then started spewing abusive sexual language into my ear about my daughter. I hung up shaking with rage. Yes, this was when you could slam a telephone down with anger and that was a very satisfying action!
I’ll never forget as that call came in on a Friday evening before a three day holiday weekend. The abuser had planned it perfectly. The problem in those days was, while I could and did report her to the police immediately, I could not call the telephone company to have her calls traced until Tuesday, the next business day.
The woman kept calling throughout the entire weekend. We let it go to answerphone (which was a micro cassette tape in those days.) The police had asked us to record the calls for evidence. All weekend long, she would call and say the most horrible things about my daughter and what deviant sexual acts she was going to do to her. Also things that proved that she actually did know my daughter which was the scariest part of it all.
Her last call was late Monday evening. She knew when to stop calling so as not to be traced. I had the cassettes which I took to the police on Tuesday. The telephone company put a trap on my line but told me there was nothing to be done unless she called again.
The police officers in my city took the matter very seriously. They told me it was common for men to behave this way but extremely unusual for women to do so. Also, because of the rarity, it generally meant it was personal and would be acted upon.
The mistake she made was that she didn’t just call my daughter and she mentioned my daughter’s preschool by name. She called several other children. Some parents actually let this perverted woman talk to their child. We all reported the crime.
The police stations in the various neighboring cities started working together and came up with a short time frame during which the children were in the same school, same class and at the same time. They also pinpointed a former employee who had had all of the children in her care for a period of two weeks before she was fired for other reasons. They were also able to figure out that she had not acted on her thoughts and words, at least not that time, as she had not been left alone with the children.
I was impressed with how quickly they found the woman and that they prosecuted her and she went to jail. Justice was swift and justice was served.
What I remember most about the episode was the rage that I felt. The strength of it made me physically shake. I have been angry before and since but nothing like the consuming fire of hatred I felt towards this woman. Frankly, I wanted to kill her. If I could have gotten my hands on her, I just might have done so. When I found out that she had done this to other children that I knew, it made me all the more enraged.
Even though I was and am a Christian, I buried the feelings down deep as an unforgiven wrong. Whenever I heard of sexual predator pedophiles, the memory would spring up and the same rage would fill me even though it has now been more than thirty years since it happened.
In going through our church’s stored past sermons, my husband and I heard and watched one recently about Grace. That it is undeserved forgiveness. The type that Jesus showed us when He died for us. He not only forgave us, He did so because He loved us – even while we were still sinning. He forgave us for all of our sins, including those against Him directly.
Jesus told us that doing a forbidden deed is a sin but also what is in our hearts and minds is as much a sin as a deed. Based on both deeds and thoughts, I’ve broken every one of the Ten Commandments. I’m guilty and my swift and sure justice should be death. And it was to be so, but then, Jesus volunteered to stand in my place and take my punishment. There’s nothing I can do to earn a pardon like that, all I can do is accept the sacrifice He gave me and thank Him forevermore for saving me from spiritual death.
The prayer that He left us with as an example of what we should pray for, the Lord’s Prayer, asks God to forgive us as we forgive others. He wants us to show others the same undeserved forgiveness that we were given.
A number of deeds I have had happen to me came to mind after hearing the sermon. I easily and wholeheartedly forgave those individuals responsible and I then put the pain behind me. I thought that was the end of it and went my way.
Each day since, something new has come to my mind and I worked through and did forgive those people. Just yesterday, I found out something that a dentist had done which almost certainly contributed to my current illness. Again, it was easy to say to God and to mean it – I forgive her.
When I sat down to write this today, I had no idea what my subject would be. I was a little concerned that I would have nothing to say. It was as if God took control of my hands and thoughts and wrote the paragraphs words for me.
Then as I typed, the whole episode regarding my daughter sprang into my mind and, for a moment, the rage burned again. I not only had to forgive the woman, I also had to ask God to forgive me for the murderous hate I still felt. While it went against every human (sin) nature that I have ever felt, I gave and asked for forgiveness. I know that He did forgive me as the rage went away and will never come back again.
I still feel sad that it all happened and am glad that my daughter had not personally faced any of it. But the weight of my sin is now gone. I can now pray for the woman involved to face her own sins and accept Jesus as her savior and turn from the evil ways she has been following. If she does so, she will become my sister in Christ. We will spend eternity together praising the One that saved us from our sins.
It’s time for us all to look inward and find those hurts and pain and rage. It is time to bring them to the Light of God’s love. He knows what has happened. He knows how hard it is. He also knows how light the burden will become once we forgive others as He has done for us. These old pains are some of the reasons we are being held back in our Christian walk. It is hard to pick up the cause of Jesus and walk His way when we are anchored in the past with pain and lack of forgiveness.
Ephesians 4:31-32 (NLT): Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.