And forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. … If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. [Matthew 6:12,14-15 (NLT)]
It’s been nearly 50 years, but I’ll never forget that day when, out of anger and fear, I vowed, “I’ll never forgive him!” My husband and I had taken our three children shopping for school clothes. While I was busy with the eldest, my husband said he’d take the other two for a walk through the mall. Unknown to me, the three-year-old had convinced his father that he’d stay at the store, sit quietly in a little crawl-through hole by the store’s entrance, and wait for his dad’s return. Unfortunately, my husband never told me of that decision. Having the attention span of a gnat, the little guy quickly grew bored watching shoppers. After wandering into the store to hide in the clothes racks, he looked for his brother and me. Not seeing us (since we were in a changing room), the independent guy decided we’d left without him and calmly went looking for us in the mall parking lot. While I was paying for our purchases, my husband returned with only one child in tow. Almost simultaneously, with panic in our voices, we asked one another, “Where’s Scooter?” My imagination went wild with all the horrible things that could have happened to the youngster. In an instant, I decided I’d never forgive my husband for his carelessness and that our marriage would be over!
After the saleswoman made a call to mall security, we learned that a concerned woman had spotted the boy wandering in the parking lot sobbing because he was sure we’d left for home without him. She took him to security where he was enjoying a red lollipop. Through God’s good graces, his misadventure had a happy ending, but what if it hadn’t? While angrily deciding I’d never forgive my husband, it never occurred to me that he’d be hard put to forgive himself if our son was harmed in any way!
I thought of that episode after reading about a 5-year-old severely autistic child who’d wandered out of his house and was found drowned in a nearby pond. A few days later, I learned of a critically injured three-year old who’d fallen out of an industrial mowing tractor and been run over by his father. Unlike our story, those stories had sad endings. Several years ago, a friend’s grandchild died in another tragic accident. Wanting to go on a ride with his dad, the toddler had quietly left the house and was standing in the driveway when his father backed over the youngster. That accident ended up destroying a family through divorce and then the father’s suicide. Apparently, neither parent could forgive the other nor could they forgive themselves. I sometimes think of how my husband and I narrowly escaped a similar ending that day in the mall. Would we have forgiven ourselves and one another? How will the family of the child run over by that lawn mower or the parents of that special-needs child cope? Will they forgive each other? Will they ever forgive themselves? Or, as happened with our friend’s family, will one tragedy lead to others?
C.S. Lewis said, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” Indeed, forgiveness isn’t easy and, sometimes, it seems nearly impossible. Nevertheless, we ask God to forgive us in the way we forgive others. It is hypocritical for us to ask God to forgive our sins if we withhold forgiveness from anyone else. Unless we want God to pick and choose among our sins and failings, we cannot pick and choose among the actions of those who’ve failed us. We don’t get to forgive the little transgressions and withhold forgiveness on the big ones unless we want God to do the same with us.
Instead of a mall cop and a three-year-old with a red lollipop, what if our story hadn’t ended well? I’d like to think that I would have forgiven my husband and our marriage would have survived and thrived. Only God knows—I certainly don’t and I thank Him for not putting me to the test!
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. [C.S. Lewis]
Today is Labor Day—the unofficial last day of summer. On a day originally intended to celebrate the accomplishments of workers, it’s somewhat ironic that most of us are doing as little work as possible. Nevertheless, whether it’s just making the bed, grilling the burgers, washing the car, or being called in for an emergency surgery, we’ll all do some work today. We appreciate the day off but we’d much prefer a full-blown vacation—with no chores, deadlines, schedules, or business calls, texts, and emails. On the ideal vacation, all we have to do is relax and enjoy ourselves.
We were discussing when and how we came to believe in the existence of God. Those who’d been brought up in families of faith said there never was a time they weren’t aware of God’s presence. Others spoke of believing in God because He is visible in His creation—in flowers, majestic mountains, birds, sunrises and sunsets, the vastness of space, or the miracle of birth. One came to believe in God while attending Vacation Bible School with a neighbor and another met God through a campus ministry. After apologizing in advance for “grossing” us out, one woman shared her experience while in medical school.
When writing about issumagijoujungnainermik, the Inuit word for forgiveness, I came across a word in the Tshiluba language spoken by the Bantu of the Congo: ilunga. Because isumagijoujungnainermik is made up of several Inuit words, it easily translates as “not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” Like issumagijoujungnainermik, ilunga has to do with forgiveness but, unlike the Inuit word, it resists an easy translation. In fact, back in 2004, 1,000 linguists gave it the questionable honor of being the world’s “most difficult” word to translate!
Devotions of the Heart 