The Power of Forgiveness

I’m trying to figure out how I got sucked back into Lifetime movies when the reality is the stories I know from my own life and the lives of others are far more fascinating, yet here I am making a list of the movies that I want to watch next. Is it the stories or the themes that are so captivating? Maybe a little bit of both. In my own life I’m struggling with forgiveness. I can read about forgiveness and I can pray about forgiveness. I can even watch movies about forgiveness, and yet here I am struggling. But there was a movie in particular that captured my attention and ultimately my heart. There are a couple of people whom I am struggling with forgiving, even though God is constantly reminding me of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross so that I could be forgiven. You would think that would be all I needed to get things right with people I need to forgive, but it wasn’t until I saw another type of forgiveness that it became clearer. I watched a movie about a young professional woman searching for her birth mother. She was already hurt at the knowledge of this woman giving her up for adoption, but the knife went in deeper upon learning that her letters to her birth mother yielded no response. It wasn’t until the death of her biological father that she was able to meet her birth mother. No spoiler alerts, but the birth mother explained where she was in life as a young teen mother and why she made the decision that she made; and her daughter understood and forgave her. As I watched the movie, two things came to mind. I don’t have a good enough reason not to forgive others. Not only that, there are people today who have forgiven me for more than what others have done to me. That is a hard pill to swallow. The truth is that God has provided us with more than just one type of mirror. His Word is a mirror, other people can be a mirror, and so can the stories we hear that mirror our own. Yesterday as I sat at lunch with a woman who had an incredible story of forgiveness and redemption, I looked into her mirror and saw something I didn’t like about myself. My unforgiving heart. This woman’s story of unconditional love showed me what it looks like when your heart is open to loving and forgiving others through the power of the Holy Spirit. I recognized that in the area of forgiveness, I had shut God out and made excuses as to why I was being unforgiving. In addition, I was thinking that this was something that was impossible, and I forgot that we don’t always forgive in our own strength but through the love of God working through us. Dear Readers, this writer is struggling with some apology letters, but it must be done. Could it be that this lull in productivity is a result of a heart that is hardened? I might just be. Final reflections: as I listened to my friend’s story at lunch and saw where she was on her journey, I saw the connection between forgiving others and leaving yourself open to God working in your life. She talked about miracle after miracle, and now I see that her ability to love and forgive is reciprocated through God and the people in her life. Lesson learned. If I want to continue to receive a harvest of forgiveness, I need to sow forgiveness. I hear you, God.