A Story of Forgiveness   

The person who is living by grace sees this vast contrast between his own sins against God and the offenses of others against him. He forgives others because he himself has been so graciously forgiven. He realizes that, by receiving God's forgiveness through Christ, he has forfeited the right to be offended when others hurt him.  Jerry Bridges

I was watching TV last night and I saw a story of forgiveness that amazed me.  The story was about a young woman who was attacked in her home by a man.  She was raped, beaten and then her home was set on fire to hide the evidence. 

She jumped out of a second story window to escape the fire.  She had a broken jaw, broken wrist, and when her sister saw her in the hospital she didn’t recognize her because her face was so swollen from the beating she took from a stranger whom she didn’t know.  Upon arriving at the hospital she had a stroke that was brought on by the attack. 

She was placed on life support and placed in a self- induced coma to give her body time to heal.  Five months later she came out of the coma but was unable to speak or walk.  She went through months of speech therapy and rehabilitation to relearn how to talk and walk again and continues to recover day by day from this one incident. 

When her attacker was caught she was able to walk into the courtroom where he was on trial for murder of another young woman.  The court allowed her to stand before her attacker.  Because she was unable to speak at that time her father read what she wanted to say to the person who took so much from her life. 

She told her attacker that she forgave him.  A year later when she was interviewed by a reporter he asked her how she was able to forgive the man who took so much from her?

This is what she said.  “I forgave him because I understood that he was angry and broken and I didn’t want to live my life like that.  I wanted peace and that is what I chose.”

Forgiveness is a choice.  By choosing to forgive, we decide what we want to do with our hurt.  That fact that we choose to forgive automatically puts us in control.  The interesting thing is when you verbalize forgiveness it is basically for yourself. You are basically saying, “I forgive you for what you did.  I release you.  I declare I am free.”  It frees us to be at peace and to remove the hurt, bitterness and resentment that come with unforgiveness.     

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I want to be like the young woman who forgave her attacker even though it was at great personal cost to her.  Forgiveness is a choice on my part and I thank you for the strength You give me to enable me to forgive when it is necessary.  I praise You for allowing me to lean on You.      

Scripture:    “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.  But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”  Mark 11:25-26