The Power of Forgiveness

On another blogspot, a post was made pointing out that life happens
too fast. Boy can I relate to that! Sometimes, a moment in time when
you just sit still and think can bring about the realization of how fast
time flies.

Just last week while we were in Idaho at the NAIA College Baseball
World Series, our soon to be 21 year old son (a relief pitcher for Biola
U.) came up to our hotel room and just collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep on our bed. My husband commented, "Look at how big he
is!" I know what he meant...he is tall, 6'3" and 170 lbs. I can still recall the times I held him in my arms as an infant, the toddler stage, the
pre-school stage, the K-12 stage and now, as a junior in college who is about to turn 21, it seems as though 21 years went by so very fast!

We looked at him, asleep on that bed and felt such joy for the kind of young man he now is, with faith and hope in the man he is continually growing to become. I welled up with such emotion! My husband and I ARE enjoying these special times with both of our children. I'm so glad that my son is home for the summer months and we are back to our family dinners together every night! This fall, my daughter will be
away at college too. Mom will have to cope with empty nest syndrome!

Sometimes when I see young children, I can still recall my son and daughter at those particular ages. Thank God we took a lot of video.
That helps us to remember them at each stage in their lives. They enjoy seeing themselves at those ages (well, my daughter does). We have been very fortunate that our two have a very good brother/sister relationship.

In my Christian internet friend Stephen's blog, he shared the
admonition that in this life, as Christians, we are to forgive others.
Easily said but sometimes, admittedly, hard to do. This really rings
true for me.

My sister and I have gone through some ups and downs in our relationship over the years, but when she was sick or went through a nasty divorce, we were able to put that aside and talk. I won't go into much detail about all of the past, but recently she called me and was, understandably, very distraught over the death of her horse, Sassy.
She doesn't have children and as she said, crying on the phone, Sassy
was "her life". She has another horse named Louie, but Sassy was the
one (if I recall correctly) that won ribbons years ago in many horse
shows in and around Cape Cod. It was like the death of a child to her.
She just needed to grieve and talk about her Sassy and I listened and cried with her.

Suddenly, she felt ill and had to get off the phone. I called the next day from the laudromat (our dryer broke down) and left her a message
which included prayer asking God for strength in coping with her loss. She called me on Sat. and said how much that message meant to her.
In our conversation, we reminisced about old times. She asked me if I remember the time that I told mom it was her turn to vacuum, and
she got mad at me, vacuumed my long hair and it got caught in the vacuum rollers. Honestly, I didn't remember that incident. I just laughed. But I remembered another one where she was quite cruel to me...funny but she didn't remember that! She finally said, "I guess
that's why you hate me." I was hurt and sad. I had thought I hid those feelings of 'dislike' in the past, but apparently she saw right through it.
Of course I told her that is not true. Of course I don't hate my sister!!
We have had our differences and spats, but we must forgive each other for past hurts. Years ago, I had forgiven her for many things that she
had done to me in the past (perhaps unknown to her) and my husband and I visited her at the Cape with our two children. This was shortly
after my dad had passed away in 1995. Because I live in California and she live on Cape Cod, it was the first time she had seen my children.
They were ages 10 and 7 then. My daughter, brother, his son and our mom recently took a road trip from Virginia to Cape Cod to visit her again last summer. We met her friend Glenn who is very nice and has helped her cope with and get through her divorce. It was good to see
her healthy and happy again.

I guess what I am trying to convey about forgiveness is that what
Stephen suggested in his blog; about forgiving others first, even if you perceive that they should have been the one to ask for forgiveness first,
is often necessary to bring about reconciliation. Letting it go back then was truly liberating to me and we now have a much better relationship than we ever had before. I would have missed out on that joy of reconciliation with my sister if I had let pride, anger, hurt, sadness,
fault-finding etc. eat away at me in my life. That is the power of forgiveness. It is truly liberating.

The cross of Christ is the ultimate power of forgiveness that is available
to us all. How could I not forgive my sister when God showed me the power of forgiveness by offering up his Son to cover all of my sins,
which led me to repentance, forgiveness, mercy, grace and the ultimate agape love of God? It is truly liberating and I know that forgiveness is a huge part of what Jesus meant when he said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."