People talk about forgiveness as if it’s a once-off event. I prefer the term living forgiveness. The thing with pain is that once the shock and raw pain subsides, it starts to only hurt when you’re triggered to remember it. Each time that happens, I forgive the person who hurt me again. And again. And again.
What I do every time fresh pain hits an old nerve is picture myself pushing the person back into Jesus. He knows that person far better than I do. He knows the heart, the motives, the reasoning. I don’t. I only know what went down from my perspective.
What pushing the person into Jesus does for me is that rather than picking up those ties of pain again, I keep them severed. It’s not my job to fix those people. It’s not my job to set them straight.
It’s theirs.
Which is why I repeatedly keep sending them back to the one place where I know they can be fixed and set straight, if they let him.
And then I step back into his heart again myself so I can soak in his comfort until the pain subsides.
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