Have you ever felt like you should do something, but it sounds a little crazy and a little scary in your head? You know the thing that makes you doubt your own thoughts and sanity? From the moment you think the thought, you start telling yourself, no…that’s just crazy.

So I am having this go around with myself this morning. There’s something that I wrote, that I feel like I should share on my blog because I think it may be helpful to someone. I don’t know even know who, but someone. Someone who could read the words that I wrote and come to a new level of freedom through forgiveness. I think this all, because, when I wrote these words something really beautiful happened to me.

But this piece that I wrote…it’s like intimate deep journal kind of stuff. You know the type of writing that helps you process something in the moment, but then you shred it and maybe even burn it so there’s no remaining evidence. But I held onto it. I originally wrote it in pen on paper, but then typed up a copy so it would be easier to reference because I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.

I was challenged to write this within a Bible study I was doing as part of a process to help let go of some stuff I was holding on to. Who likes to admit that there is stuff we are holding onto, stuff that we know is holding us back? I know I was making the choice to hold on, and felt like I had made multiple attempts to let go. Then I’d find myself holding it again. I’m such a mess!

Which all reinforces my thoughts about the preponderance of sharing this specific piece of writing.

But, obedience seems more important than logic in this moment.

When I wrote this, and as I share this below, I feel I need to say that the “YOU” did not have a specific name to it. The “YOU” was an amalgamation of several people and several circumstances that I needed to release. Which, as a quick sidebar, release was my word for 2020 and writing this really did help to open my hands, allowing me to cast some heavy cares upon the Lord.

The word “YOU” in this writing contains ME too. I’m guilty of hurting others, inflicting pain, and wounding deeply. Like I said before, I am a mess. Not like a fully recovered mess, like an on going, you think I would learn by now, continuing to find new complications in situations kind of mess.

But, I am a forgiven mess. There have been some absolutely incredible people in life who have forgiven me. Their hearts beat with forgiveness in such generous and abundant measure that I don’t even know how to receive it. I continue to learn and grow in understanding of Christ’s forgiveness of me. It still leaves me in awe. I want to be like that. I want my heart to beat and flow with forgiveness, from the heart of Jesus into my life, and out into the hearts of the lives that come in contact with my own.

So after a very long winded introduction…here is what I wrote

FORGIVENESS

I forgive you.  

The love of the Lord, Jesus Christ, in His great mercy, suffered at the hands of my sins a horrific death.  In the depths of unimaginable pain, He cried out.  He pleaded with God, not that I would feel or know or understand the pain that I was putting Him through.  

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” Luke 23:24 

For so long I have been crying out that I want you to know my pain.  I want you to feel the agony of my hurts.  I want you to understand every tear and heartache that you have and continue to inflict upon me.  

That pain is a part of the cross I bear.  But, it pales in comparison to that cross which Jesus bore for me.  The only way to experience greater freedom, greater forgiveness myself, is to forgive those who trespass against me.  

I forgive you, to enter greater freedom.  I forgive you, to walk in peace and mercy.  I forgive you, to be refreshed, renewed, and strengthened by grace.  I forgive you, because worth is not determined by words, thoughts, or actions. 

Worth is determined by God the Father, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit.  The Lord says, 

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”  John 15:16

I ask, in Jesus’ name, for the power and strength, and authority to forgive you.  Forgiveness is the heart of the Father, and I desire to draw near to His heart – more than having you know, feel, and understand my hurt, pain, and suffering.  

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. 

May they seek, find, and receive your forgiveness to release the hurts that cause them to live in pain, pain that actively wounds those around them.  May there be miraculous healings by your gracious hand.  

In the loving, endless, forgiving name of Jesus, amen.