On my way to work after church today, I got to thinking about how we pray the Lord's Prayer every week, asking God to forgive us in the measure we forgive others. I've thought a lot about that part of the prayer this past year, as forgiveness is the lesson God wants me to begin to learn.
One thing I've learned in the process is that forgiveness comes down to trust - trusting God to deal with the offenders in the way He sees fit, whether or not it is the way we see fit.
Forgiving K and co. is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is not yet complete. I must admit to a certain amount of glee when I heard on the news that her area of the country was declared a disaster area due to Hurricane Ivan. I caught myself in this though, and realized how unforgiving and evil that thought was. I doubt her house was touched, but to think something like that...unspeakably wrong.
Anyway, thinking about trusting God led on to thinking about how I was treated by the various people in the situation. I feel K and all the mods showed a complete lack of trust in me, treating me like a petulant child, not an adult with a real relationship with the living God. They lacked trust in me, and, it seems to me, showed a lack of trust in God to change people. They gave me no reason to strive to do better, except that to fail to do so would incur their wrath.
I don't react well when I feel I've been treated like that.
Then I think of how my church treated me. My pastor showed complete trust in me and in the power of God to change me. He knew the whole truth, from K's POV, and trusted me anyway. And I realized that this is what I respond to in a positive manner. When someone shows that they trust me to do better, and trust God to work in me, when someone offers to pray for me in a way that is totally humble...well, that's how I change, because I don't want to disappoint this person who has set themselves up for hurt if I fail. He didn't threaten me with punative action; he trusted me, as one Christian to another.
But I am so glad K e-mailed him because it enabled God to put His hand into the situation and turned something painful and awful into something good and beautiful. That's a miracle only He could perform.
Because of what she did, I have seen two very different ways of handling the situation - her way, and my church's way. I think my church's way is better because it is the one I responded to in the way God would have wanted - to get me to realize the sinfulness of my actions and stop.
If she hadn't done what she did, I would have lost out on a lot. I never would have seen Christ in action through my pastor, telling me "Go and sin no more." I never would have learned what I best respond to. I might have even walked away from my faith, then fallen even further and given myself to the sin. After all, the goddess wouldn't have told me to give it up because she says it is not wrong. I never would have seen Romans 8:28 in such technicolor. I never would have seen the right - and wrong - way to handle this sort of thing. In short, I learned a lot about God, other people, and myself - all because she e-mailed my pastor to get me in trouble with my local church.
Lord, you know them better than I ever could. You know the purity of their motives, and their lack of biblical understanding. You know the situation better than I ever could. Help me to trust You. Trusting You has always been hard for me. Help me to do so that I may find true peace and freedom in letting them go, and getting on with my new life.
A fellow traveler Stumbling toward Bethlehem,
Victoria
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