Sunday, April 11, 2010

My dearest God,

I've heard the scripture many times before but today it said something different to me. I can only believe it is a message from you. "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." John 20:23. I've always listened to these words of John but I never really spent much time thinking about them.

What came to me first was the need to forgive sins. I understand that. I forgive. You forgive. Your grace replaces the sin which dies away. However, if I fail to forgive, you still forgive and grace moves in. When I hold on to the sin, I carry it with me. I keep it alive. The sin's potency can leak into my own soul, altering me. In other words, if I can't forgive someone who has hurt me, the holding power alone can harm me. Perhaps it soils my own soul. The more deeply I hang on to it, the more sin can change my attitude and my actions into resentment. Resentment can turn into bitterness and bitterness can take root. Nothing good comes from bitterness.

I thought backward, reflecting upon my own actions. I could see where I allowed this process to take place within my own soul. I saw the ways in which bitterness negatively changed me. My thinking became blurred, my wounds remained, my ability to move forward was impaired and my faith was hindered all because I refused to let go, allowing grace to do its work.

What I realized in church was that this process of anchoring myself in sin holding not only hurts me; it influences others. My negative behavior can spill out onto those around me. My negativity can breed negativity in others. My resentment and/or bitter ways can brush unsuspecting individuals around me, family members, friends, even strangers. Like a snowball rolling downhill, it can pick up others along the way, doing damage and destruction. The sin no matter how large or small can become so huge that it turns into something else. The implications can be far reaching.

Sadly, the next scene that came to me as I sat in the choir loft was a picture of others who are even now holding on to the past. They cannot forgive, refusing to permit your healing to take place. Their attitudes are sour, their words negative, their actions unloving. They are an unhappy lot because they, like me, cannot, will not surrender that which is eating away at them.

What is amazing to me is the beautiful way the opposite process works. Forgiveness frees, liberating us from the past. It keeps the inner soul clear and working well. Joy can flow from an eternal well. Faith grows, courage multiplies, love heals and those around us are inspired, touched, challenged and helped. What a difference surrender can make as we move to the side allowing grace to renew, restore and replace those injuries of the past. Your love penetrates us opening wide our valleys of despair, injecting into them the balm of heaven.

You, O God,
heal like
no other.
Your grace
truly is
sufficient for
all things.
Your love
transforms us,
making us new.
Why do
we wait
so long
to turn
toward you?

Love always, Andrea