Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Forgiveness Fridays

A guest-blog series on the theme of forgiveness. You won’t want to miss this.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Bullying, a necklace and a story of forgiveness

    I recently came across a moving story of forgiveness, which I share below. The woman writing it needs to remain anonymous, but I can vouch for her integrity and love. She shows that forgiveness is freeing.

    Wisdom and forgiveness are like a “a garland of grace on your head, and a pendant around your neck.” Proverbs 1:9

    To say that you forgive a person for doing wrong to you is easier said than done. You can say those words “I forgive you,” but can you honestly say in your heart that you really do forgive that person? Or as Corrie Ten Boom says, “Sometimes people forgive like they are burying the hatchet but keep the handle uncovered in case they need to use it again.” But this only prolongs the conflict.

    I have been through a tough time. Only a handful of people know and have been praying for me. It started in March 2017 and I didn’t see an end to it. You see, I was bullied. Most people think this only happens in the playground but, in my fifties I’m ashamed to say I was bullied by a woman a few years older than myself. The reason for the bullying, it seems, was because I was good at my job. Crazy but true.

    Going back to before I became a Christian, my values were different. If someone upset me, I could stand up for myself, and believe me, I did. My husband once said that I could “rip someone’s throat out at 50 paces” – something I am not proud of. But Jesus changed me. I accepted him into my life and the change in me was so real, so amazing, that even my sister said, “It’s like you have been taken over by aliens” and my husband said I had a glow “like the Readybrek advert.” I was a changed person, not in a small way but in a huge way and it was all thanks to God.

    However, over the years, I struggled and still do. The reason I struggled is that when people are cruel to me or upset me, instead of dealing with it in the way I should, I accepted their behaviour towards me. I almost allowed them to say or do what they wanted because I didn’t know how I should react. So instead of responding, I said nothing. You see, I didn’t know what response was acceptable as a Christian and what wasn’t. So I let people walk over me and hurt me. I realise now that the change had to come from me but I didn’t know how to do that. I couldn’t do it in my own strength.

    The story of Corrie ten Boom has been told countless times through the years. Yet, even today, it remains one of the most beloved stories of forgiveness this world has ever known. During World War II, she and her family saved Jews from being sent off to concentration camps by hiding them in a room at the top of their home. When Nazi officers learned what was going on, the house was raided and Corrie was sent to a prison, a political concentration camp, and finally a death camp. But, miraculously, she survived. As you can imagine, there were many moments of hardship that Corrie had to overcome even after the war ended.

    One such moment was at a church where she saw a former SS man who guarded her in the concentration camp. As the man approached her to shake her hand, everything in her reminded her of the horrid pain this man had brought upon her. And even though Corrie often spoke of the need to forgive others, she knew she couldn’t forgive this man in her own strength. God had to do it through her.

    Corrie writes, “When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” God gave Corrie the strength to forgive and love the man when she could not.

    Perhaps you’ve never had to deal with such heavy forgiveness in your life as Corrie ten Boom has, but there are many times in life when we will have to both forgive and be forgiven. Here are four things to keep in mind when you forgive someone.

    • Realize everyone has to be forgiven. It will save you a lot of trouble to understand early on that we all will make mistakes and need forgiveness at some point.
    • Forgiveness isn’t earned. Grace is undeserved favour that no one can earn. Therefore, forgiveness should be given with no expectations in return and no strings attached.
    • Don’t bring it up again. Sometimes people forgive like they’re burying the hatchet but keeping the handle uncovered in case they need to use it again.
    • Make the decision and your heart will catch up. If you wait to feel ready to forgive, it’s never going to happen. Rather, you must make the decision to forgive and soon enough your heart will catch up.

    I believe that in recently I’ve truly understand forgiveness for the first time. I can honestly say that through the teachings of Corrie Ten Boom, I can wholeheartedly forgive the person who has bullied me, and I pray that God will change that person’s heart and make her a better person. I pray that He will replace the bullying attitude within her and give her a spirit of kindness and humility and that she will now begin to treat people the way they should be treated. I pray that whatever has caused this bitterness within her will be revealed to her so that she can deal with it and have peace in her heart.

    Clipart drawing of a necklace.

    Recently I received an amount of compensation for what I went through. For me it wasn’t about the money. It was about truth and justice, and that no one else should ever experience what I went through. From some of the money, I purchased a necklace. It felt a bit extravagant, but when I wear this necklace, I will remember that I stood up to the bully, that justice was done and forgiveness was given. Corrie Ten Boom went through an awful lot more than I did and found the strength to forgive through Jesus, so if Corrie can go through all of that and forgive, then I can too.

    So, do I feel good that the outcome is compensation paid into my bank account? No I do not. But I wear this necklace as a symbol that justice was done, and I thank God that through the teachings of Corrie Ten Boom, forgiveness has been given. Now I will take time to recover and allow Jesus to heal me so that I can move forward and not look back.

    Amy’s book The Living Cross explores forgiveness through a series of daily Bible readings for Lent. You can find out more about it, and how to purchase, here.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: The sweet freedom of forgiveness between Christians by Sheila Holwell

    I am pained by the division that happens sometimes between Christians who embrace different streams of faith and practice, so when I heard Sheila Holwell’s story of the freedom that forgiveness brings from this kind of fracture, I was eager to share it with you. Might there be someone who has hurt you in this way whom you could forgive?

    A meditation in Our Daily Journey, written by Amy Boucher Pye on the subject of forgiveness, got me thinking. At the conclusion we were led into considering whether there were any experiences in our lives where there was a need to forgive.

    While I have been very conscious of the need for forgiveness over the years, and have known the wonderful freedom it brings, as I read there suddenly flooded into my mind the memory of an incident about thirty years ago in the church. I knew immediately that I had not really forgiven.

    A new Curate came when I was involved with the Pathfinder Group of young teens. The mother of one of our members came to see us, concerned that, while she encouraged her children to be faithful to their commitments, she felt this was being challenged as the Curate had told her daughter to be trained as a Server, which meant leaving Pathfinders. This was done without our being told of that decision.

    There were other incidents that were done without communication so I went to the Curate and asked him to “lay his cards on the table” and tell me what was going on. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “You are not a mainline Anglican and you don’t fit. I was so shocked that I did not respond, so I went to the Vicar and told him what had been said and his response was “Well, it is true.” Having made a point of being committed to the church over the years in every way possible, including moulding into the different churchmanship, I found their statements very hurtful.

    As the realisation came to me that I had not forgiven the Curate, I laid the whole situation at the foot of the Cross. I knew that Jesus had been there with me at the time, and so I was able to forgive and pray for this person, leaving it all with the Risen Christ. Subsequent circumstances caused me to thank God that it was a stage on my pilgrimage that was contributory to where I am today.

    Finally, to bring the seal of God’s redeeming love on it all I placed the whole situation, via a little written note, on the Altar at the Eucharist. Praise the Lord! I am free!

    Sheila Holwell was born in North London, where she had a grandmother who taught her to love the Bible and to enjoy Moody and Sankey hymns. As a teenager she felt the call to serve the Lord where he wanted her. Later came the very unexpected pathway to being an R.A.F. wife to a widower, and stepmother to a nine-year-old boy, with whom sixty years on she has a wonderful relationship.

    She worked for the NHS with her husband became Readers in the Oxford Diocese, serving together until they moved to Devon. Sadly her husband died of cancer and also had dementia. It was then, however, that she experienced the miraculous ways God leads in devastating circumstances.

    The doorway into Anglo-Catholicism opened and she is very happy with a wonderful vicar, who has a great sense of humour. Their evangelical versus liberal theology is dealt with in love. She finds sharing Jesus in prayer, preaching, and pastoral care such a privilege.

    Amy’s book The Living Cross explores forgiveness through a series of daily Bible readings for Lent. You can find out more about it, and how to purchase, here.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Letting Go by Mabel R. Nyazika

    I love hearing stories of how God brings transformation and healing, and I so enjoy being able to share them as well. I met Mabel, the author of today’s story, at a day I led in a Methodist church on “Finding Ourselves in Christ.” Afterward, she told me how God helped her to forgive her husband, setting her free from bitterness:

    Betrayal – the one thing that almost without fail breaks a person’s heart. That’s what happened to me.

    I was in my mid-fifties with an established career and was happily married, with everything near perfect. I had a strong meaningful relationship with God, a fulfilling job in the church, and a life I had built with my husband – or so I thought.

    When my marriage ended suddenly in Addis Ababa, my world collapsed. I had never anticipated that happening, so I had no plan B in my mind. I had married for life, because in my wedding vows I had committed myself to this other person until “death do us part.” I just assumed that my husband had as well, so when he told me he didn’t love me anymore and he wanted the marriage to end I was devastated.

    What I found so hard was the unwillingness on my husband’s part to work at our marriage. I felt like something was going on but I couldn’t place my finger on what it was. What brought more heartbreak was his refusal to sit down and talk, for up until then we had been very good friends who enjoyed each other’s company. This time he could not bear being in the same room with me.

    All this happened when we were living in a foreign country where I did not have the support networks I would have had in our native country. But I did have the support of the vicar who was the minister at the Anglican church where we worshipped. My husband wanted us to play happy families at church, pretending all was alright. For a while I played along with that hoping that perhaps he wanted to work things out. In the end I decided to confide in the vicar who waited for my husband to tell him what was happening in our marriage.

    But he didn’t. Instead he told the vicar that we had decided that I should leave Ethiopia to go back home to be with his son, my step son. That was not true; I was going back because we were now divorcing.

    I continued to pray and fast, hoping that somehow God would help us sort things out. The scripture I held on to was Malachi 2: 16 which says:

    “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel. “I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife” (GNB).

    Because my husband attended the Anglican church I honestly believed that he was reading and praying as he thought about the vows he made when we married. But ten months after he had sent me back home, I heard he had got married. I couldn’t understand how he could have met someone in that short time and married her.

    Then it dawned on me that he must have been in a relationship with someone else while we were still married. I recalled some telephone calls in the middle of the night. When I inquired who this person was, he would tell me a story that I believed as I had no reason to be suspicious. That realisation made me feel betrayed as I had trusted him to be a faithful, God-fearing husband.

    Forgiveness is something I have always struggled with despite being a Christian as I’ve read verses like Proverbs 17:9 which say: “If you want people to like you, forgive them when they wrong you. Remembering wrongs can break up a friendship.” I tend to hold on to the hurt. If it the hurt involves close family, I would cut communication with them to take my time navigating the difficult situations. Then later I get to the place where I can forgive.

    But the end of my marriage has helped me to deal seriously with my unforgiving heart. As I struggled with my marriage breakdown I understood the line in the Lord’s prayer which I have said over again throughout my life which says: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

    The more I reflected on my not letting go of my husband’s betrayal, the more I realised I was robbing myself of experiencing God’s forgiveness. I let go of all my resentment and anger towards him and felt lighter and liberated. I felt free of a burden that was not worth carrying around with me. Despite his cheating, I knew that deep down in my heart I had sincere love for him as God’s creation. This love covered over all his offences. I kept on reminding myself to forgive him not only seven times, but seventy seven times, as reflected in Matthew 18:21-22.

    Letting go of needing answers as to why my marriage ended freed me from being a victim. I sought healing of the wounds from God as I deepened and strengthened my relationship with him. As I accepted what happened to me, what was a catastrophe turned out to be a liberating learning curve – a  great experience of forgiveness and my ability to bask in God’s forgiveness for me.

    Now as I move forward all, I want to do is to help others who may find themselves in the situation like the one I went through, which I now use as a stepping stone to greater things.

    Mabel R. Nyazika is a Zimbabwean currently living in the United Kingdom and employed by Sale Methodist circuit as a lay worker. She worked for the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe for the best part of her life as a training co-ordinator. She holds a BA (HONS) and an MA in contextual theology.

    Amy’s book The Living Cross explores forgiveness through a series of daily Bible readings for Lent. You can find out more about it, and how to purchase, here.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Forgiveness, Martin Luther and Jonah by Michael Parsons

    With the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next week, I thought it appropriate to feature a post on forgiveness and Martin Luther, written by one who knows a lot about the reformer, Michael Parsons. He also was my editor for The Living Cross, and was one of my three readers for my MA dissertation on Calvin. He’s a gentle and insightful teacher, as you’ll see here.

    In a year that commemorates the beginnings of the European Reformation, it seems appropriate to say something about Martin Luther. Those who know anything about Luther will know that he never minimizes the seriousness of sin; nor, however, does he minimize the grace of forgiveness. Indeed, he exalts in it. And the biblical story of Jonah gives him ample opportunity.

    Luther spots at least two sins in Jonah’s behaviour. First, Jonah should have accepted the will of God (Jonah 1) and should have been ‘most happy to carry it out’. Instead, he runs away. Second, he sins, in being angry to the point of wanting to die (Jonah 4). What impresses me, however, is how positive the reformer is about all this. Luther moves from a negative situation (the sin of Jonah) to extremely positive application. In that, he might be an example to us today.

    1. Luther rejoices to see that Old Testament saints sinned! Notice how he puts this: ‘even the greatest and best saints sin grievously’. Read that again. They sin, but they remain ‘the greatest and best saints’! Jonah chapter 4 gives the clue. Luther notices that the prophet continues to converse with God, ‘He chats so uninhibitedly with God as though he were not in the least afraid of him … he confides in him as in a father.’ Luther insists that the bottom line is not the prophet’s sin, but that Jonah ‘is God’s dear child’.
    2. Look at Luther’s amazing application: ‘[W]e learn that God permits his children to blunder and err greatly and grossly. … [W]e observe how very kindly, paternally, and amiably God deals with those who place their trust in him in times of need. … It is the daily sin of a child that the heavenly Father willingly bears in his mercy.’ Again, re-read that last comment. The Lord mercifully forgives us daily – that’s grace!
    3. Luther applies it again in a very personal way: ‘I remain in the kingdom of grace when I do not despair of God’s mercy, no matter how great my sin may be, but resolutely pin mind and conscience to the belief that there is still grace and forgiveness for me.’ Notice the italicized words, ‘no matter how great my sin may be’. He concludes that divine ‘mercy asserts itself and proves stronger than all wrath’. And again, ‘All sins which let grace triumph and reign are forgivable.’

    So, Luther moves from a negative situation to extremely positive application. He wants us to see outside the confines of the human dilemma to the wider context of the love of God. Luther’s main intention is to encourage us, and particularly those of us who preach, to trust in the grace and goodness of God. Therefore, he stresses God’s grace in forgiveness and in an openness to receive sinners who return to him.

    One of Luther’s repeated comments (though I don’t remember it in his lectures on Jonah) is that in Jesus Christ we already have everything. It is this truth that underlines his application. We are loved, we are forgiven daily, because the Father loves us in Christ.

    Michael Parsons is currently commissioning editor for The Bible Reading Fellowship. He is the author of several books on the Reformation and an Associate Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Forgiving my abuser; forgiving my accusers

    Today’s post tells the story of heartache and pain, but new life after forgiveness. In the light of all of the current news about abusers and the women who suffer from them, it feels timely. The writer, who asked not to be named, suffered not only at the hands of her husband but by those who believed the lies spread about her. Yet she found freedom in forgiveness.

    When I wanted to be baptised by full immersion, the minister – the most gentle, patient man I had ever come across – touched my back to show me how I would be dipped under the water. I nearly screamed because it involved trusting him completely. I was most upset but he got the ladies of the church to lay on hands and pray for me. I also went back to my Bible and my God and read that He is the greatest Counsellor of them all. I understood that I had to forgive my abusive husband, who had caused so much fear and pain, but initially I was unable to recall the incident that had affected me so much.

    I was baptised in the summer of 1988 and testified that “Perfect Loves drives out fear.” However, by the next summer, my husband threw me out for bringing God home. As I was unable to see my son much and was concerned for his welfare, I started custody proceedings. One evening my husband picked up my son, told him to stay in the car and came into the place where I was staying and nearly strangled me. The year before I had used the name of Jesus to protect me from violence but now I could barely scream.

    Someone heard and interrupted him – he claimed to have stepped on my toe! As the accommodation I had was not secure, I ran across the field to friends. He went directly to the Manse and said “I haven’t done anything!” I was in shock but had a cup of tea and as soon as the memory came back, I prayed, for I wanted to forgive him.

    Over time, I was able with God’s help recall the experiences and feel God walk with me through them, as He reassured me that He was there and in control. I received forgiveness for my own guilt and to forgive in the sense that if my abuser asked God for forgiveness he would be forgiven.

    I learned that the trauma of violence and menacing threats can have a deep effect on the unconscious as well as conscious mind. Fear is a normal human reaction when memories are triggered. Some think that there are two reactions to fear – fight or flight. But there is a third reaction – freeze, like a rabbit caught in car headlights. It means that a person cannot stop the abuse and can be made to feel guilty (e.g. you asked for it). To freeze is to submit to some pain in fear of something worse, which is how I reacted.

     

    Photo: Tim Geers, flickr

    I grew up in a family where my mum was unfaithful all her married life, despising my dad and me as his daughter. After my abusive husband threw me out and I was granted a divorce, I was fourteen years single and celibate. I did not realise that my mum behind my back accused me of some awful things, such as sleeping with every man I spoke to being the least unpleasant. Perhaps it was harder, though, to have to leave the church where I had found faith, for people were nice to my face but later told others I should be thrown out – and I never knew why. Apparently I did not need to be told as I knew what I had done!

    So I left my church and started going to a small country chapel. But I felt rejected for “being divorced”, even though I would not have been divorced if I had not found God. I might have been one of the stats, killed by my husband as he threatened it often and long.

    I continued to go there, and fourteen years after the trauma of leaving my abusive husband, Andrew asked me out. I told him that I was “damaged goods”, but he said that I was a new creation in Christ. I prayed, heard God and said yes to him.

    Three weeks after Andrew had said he wanted to marry me, and the day he bought my engagement ring, he was told by another couple in the chapel that they would not take communion with him because he was marrying a divorced woman (even though the man himself was divorced and remarried). Andrew’s parents too had heard much gossip and told him that he was wrong to marry me. In the face of this opposition, he had to choose to do what he thought God was telling him to do. He chose to obey God and pursue me, even though he would lose the friendship of the only Christian friends he had and the respect of his family. But after three years, we were reconciled to those who had opposed our union, and when Andrew’s father died, his mother said that he was fond of me.

    My church have a policy of not marrying divorced people, so we married in the registry office and the vicar sat in the front row to witness it! We each had to cling to our Lord and our faith, not each other. Later Andrew said he felt like Joseph (in the New Testament) as he doubted when the people he respected all told him he was wrong to marry me. He also felt like Joseph (in the Old Testament) as he felt thrown out and sent away by his family. But in all of this, forgiveness has been the key as we trusted God and found freedom from bitterness.

     

    I had known for years that I did not like anything around my neck. But I found Andrew had the most gentle touch I ever came across. He works with his hands but they are soft – his touch felt like a feather. He wanted to touch my neck, and involuntarily I jumped like I had a shock. It was an unconscious reaction, but he put his strong arms around me and starting talking to God in the same way he spoke to me.

    I had been healed of much but had thought that complete healing would only be in heaven where there is no more sorrow, crying or pain. But Andrew has a deep profound faith and asked our Father God, believing that He wanted me healed now. Not that I didn’t think God was not big enough to deal with this, but I felt somehow I didn’t deserve it. Andrew’s attitude of faith encouraged me to ask Father God also to heal if it was his will for Andrew’s sake as much as my own – it seemed so unfair to him and my reactions made me feel very guilty.

    When he prayed for me, it was not a warm fuzzy feeling but then you must remember this is healing of emotions and teaching the brain to react in a different way. Over about ten days I realised there was a difference as Andrew continued to pray whenever I needed it. Now I like my neck being touched; it gives me pleasure. After all, Satan comes to take the best; to steal and destroy, but God restores and makes all things new! Father God honoured Andrew’s faith and increased my own.

    I have been forgiven much, and I forgave. Forgiveness means leaving the justice issue with God rather than wanting vengeance. By doing this, it made a painful memory into plain history and enabled me to move on.

    My book The Living Cross looks at the theme of forgiveness through daily readings based in the Old Testament and the New. Find out more here.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: No Longer a Caterpillar by Claire Daniel

    I believe today’s contribution to our forgiveness series will resonate with so many people. I can certainly relate to that having a stream of thoughts and accusations running through my mind of things I shouldn’t have said or done. How can we forgive ourselves? Read on…

    Ten years ago, as summer faded into autumn, I experienced a season of overwhelming depression that upended every aspect of my life. It altered my very thoughts and feelings, and made my internal and external world feel utterly shaken. Overcoming this all-consuming illness was a difficult journey, where everything felt uncertain. Hope was hard to find, yet never truly lost.

    I now live daily aware, grateful for the changes that have occurred in me having experienced that season and in so many ways stronger, having been broken and restored. Yet still, at times, I remember. In moments of vulnerability, forgiving my past self is not easy. Unexpected things will trigger off a memory. I am reminded of things I said or did whilst ill and waves of guilt and remorse can still come flooding back into my consciousness. This usually happens when I least expect it and I still struggle to reconcile these memories with the person I am now. I cannot erase them, or forget. If I am absolutely honest, I am still working on how to completely forgive myself.

    I love the beauty and grace of butterflies but they also represent for me a powerful metaphor for the journey we take, in life and faith. Like a caterpillar, we need to go through a process of change, in order to be renewed and transformed. This often means experiencing times that are ‘dark,’ where we need to enter a ‘chrysalis’ season, where change feels slow or even halted entirely and progress seems slow.

    I was recently struck by a verse someone shared with me from Zephaniah. In looking at it in context, we see a book that seems so full of doom, yet is ultimately about a God of redemption. Zephaniah 3:17 says, in the NIV translation, ‘The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.’ It is interesting that in the Good News translation the phrase ‘new life’ is used rather than the word ‘rebuke.’ God will rebuke you no longer, but gives you a fresh start, a clean slate.

    Yet how often do we still rebuke ourselves? We berate ourselves for our actions, whether consciously or subconsciously. How can we truly say we live in freedom through Christ, yet continue to hold ourselves in contempt for something we said or did in the past? I think this is partly human nature but I also believe that forgiveness is a choice, an action. We can choose to hold on to the guilt that binds us and reproach ourselves or we can surrender it to God and ask him to help us forgive ourselves. We can make a conscious decision to let go of long-held feelings of shame or regret. When we recall our past behaviour we can strive to replace these with a real understanding of the truth – that we are loved by God and he rejoices over us, our past forgiven.

    When we place our hope in God, we can trust that he will keep on transforming us, replacing our disgrace with his grace. There will still be ‘caterpillar’ days or ‘chrysalis’ seasons where we feel we aren’t moving anywhere or we repeat the mistakes of the past. In these times God is still gently honing us, teaching us through the seasons where daily life and faith is a struggle and we feel so very far from becoming the ‘butterfly’ God created us to one day be. Even when we have moved on in our life, there will be vulnerable moments when we feel those feelings afresh. Memories will remain, though with time they will intrude on our thinking less often. It is one thing to know that God forgives us but to truly forgive ourselves can be so very hard to do, to fully embrace the freedom God has for us – no guilt, no shame, our sins forgotten.

    Part of my recovery from that season of my life involved reclaiming hope and believing afresh that I am forgiven and restored. I continue to daily place my trust in God, to refine me. If we have truly changed, like a caterpillar who has entered the chrysalis, the fact is we cannot change back. The echoes of past transgressions can be silenced by choosing to let them go, giving them over to God, when they threaten to darken our present. We can take a stand, refusing to let the memory of the past define us today or prevent us from being the person God is daily transforming us into – perhaps not yet a butterfly but no longer a caterpillar.

    Claire Daniel is author of 80 Creative Prayer Ideas and Prayer Journey into Parenthood and lives in Water Orton, Birmingham, with her husband and their two busy boys. She is passionate about prayer, supporting parents on their journey into parenthood and encouraging others to explore different ways of praying and meeting with God in every season of life. She provides support to groups, churches and organisations seeking to use creative prayer ideas in ministry or develop new ways to pray. She leads workshops on creative prayer and speaks about prayer and the journey of parenthood and faith at conferences, churches, and retreats.
    http://www.clairedaniel.org.uk/
    www.facebook.com/creativeprayer
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    Twitter: @Creative_Prayer

  • Forgiveness Fridays: A Teasel in the Wind by Sharon Roberts

    Forgiving ourselves can often be harder than forgiving others. Sharon Roberts shares her story of learning to forgive herself – a journey of forgiveness that she still walks, as I suspect many of us do. I loved learning about teasels, too.

    My story of forgiveness had to start from within. In my journey of forgiveness I’ve had to focus on the relationship between the sins of inheritance and how can God forgive a sinner like me.

    What do I mean by the sins of inheritance? My mum had schizophrenia and bipolar, and because of that, I felt useless. After all, I couldn’t stop her from becoming ill and spending a long period of time in hospital. I felt too that my behaviour was a contributing factor to my mum’s illness, for members of my family said so. I had the ability to push buttons of family members, which would confirm their accusations.

    In infancy, I experienced rejection, and abandonment was a feature of those early years. I always felt like an outsider; one who was a disappointment; the useless human. I have believed it all my life. The root cause is the childhood experiences that had left great chasms of regret and failure. I was the outsider – the attention seeker, the drama queen. I felt I made everyone’s life a misery. To escape that internalised misery became a battle, with my first line of defence being belittling myself, causing myself to be humiliated and to hide the feelings that I long felt in my heart. I learnt to believe what I was hearing and feeling.

    I had searched for forgiveness in my family and community, but realized these earthly relationships were never going to give what my soul required. The forgiveness I required was far more than the accepting of my own personality defects, but that Jesus loved me.

    However, the forgiveness was coming from a male father construct. And for me, the relationship with my own father was volatile and we could – and still can – push emotional buttons. That button has been depressed so frequently that forgiveness is never been fully established. The relationship is damaged.

    To heal my pains, I would rescue emotionally damaged people and put them in a lifeboat, trying to get them to the shore. This is the way I chose to seek personal forgiveness for the actions that had caused so much hurt to others – or at least so I felt.

    But the more this happened, the more the pain increased, especially when the support I offered was rebuked or shunned, with them jumping from the lifeboat and seeking their own way back to land. My feelings of inadequacy returned as self-hatred soared through me like a red-hot poker. I was unable to forgive myself. The pain I saw others in, and my failure to get the desired response, meant I could not forgive myself. My actions became subconsciously narcissistic and added to my internalised guilt, frustration and rejection. Each time a footprint was left on me and it took time to fade, although some are still there and may never change.

    Not understanding forgiveness on a spiritual level, I served myself an unappetising meal of self-regret and hatred and seasoned it with a poison that tainted my palate. The problem with this type of relationship with one’s self is destructive and its ripples can be felt throughout one’s life. You stop looking at the Cross and continue to paddle the lifeboat by yourself.

    Then one day I began to understand – perhaps as an answer to prayer – that these flaws were actually part of a unique picture, the picture was colourful, it was more beautiful than I had ever imagined. It danced like a teasel in the wind.

    Prickly Wild Teasel Dipsacaceae Dipsacus Fullonum

    Now let me explain this analogy. A close friend one day described me as a teasel in the wind. At first, I was bemused by the thought of looking like spikey, undesirable plant, used by the National Trust to keep the public from positioning their bottoms on a famous or delicate chair. Teasels, meant to me keep off something too precious. Then I went online and found the picture of one. This is where the journey of forgiving my hatred of myself began. A friend who had prayed for me planted a teasel seed, via God.

    I started to follow the advice of others. I sought Jesus and stopped and observed a teasel. Its beauty is not instant; you have to sit and observe, to get to know it. Its prickly appearance makes it seem unapproachable, but after a little time, its beauty is apparent. Its purple colouring attracts the attention of bees – creatures also maligned and misunderstood. Bees are not forgiven for protecting themselves, for which they die. They are never remembered for the work they do and the part they play in our beloved life cycle.

    I forgive the bees but can I ever forgive myself for being me? Time tests this regularly, and on a good day I can see the beauty that God forgave me a long time ago. When He sent Jesus to look for the missing sheep, He found me. Scared, broken, fearful I was, and slowly Jesus has helped to bring this teasel into bloom. Sometimes, it doesn’t get as tall or as noticeable as the others. But it tries again and may need to be rescued, re-cultivated.

    It has always been easier to forgive others than it has been to forgive my own mistakes and personality flaws. Not forgiving myself became the norm, and there was, is and will be, days that I just can’t move past these negative feelings.

    When I was a child, I was the sheep that was different, the black sheep. As an adult, I learned that Jesus came for this lost sheep. As a much wiser adult, I truly believed that lost sheep could actually munch on teasels.

    Sharon Roberts has lived with her partner of 30 years, walking their roads together with some of the terrain being more treacherous than others, but making it through. She is the mother of two grown-up sons who are a source of inspiration, and the grandmother to one. She finds that being a grandmother is the reward that just keeps on giving and helps her on the journey to self-forgiveness.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: A Work in Progress

    What about when forgiveness seems impossible? A mountain too high even to contemplate climbing? Today’s contribution comes from an unnamed friend who writes honestly and movingly. She knows that she is a work in progress – and yet she has hope for the way forward.

    Sometimes I wonder why I find it so hard to forgive. Is God picking on me with all the bad and hard stuff? Maybe I exaggerate. I know many people are much worse off than I am; people with nothing, less than nothing, and I should be grateful.

    Let me tell you a bit of my story. My grandmother was killed in Auschwitz, as well as my uncle, and aunt, and a cousin, and there’s another cousin about whom there is a mystery. I feel I shouldn’t complain, for whole families were wiped out that way, and I didn’t experience it myself.

    But also, my mother died by suicide when I was a child. She spoke her last words to me, and they were not kind. My relationship with her was bad, really bad. It took me till my 60s to admit to myself that she was cruel to me. I’ve had to work on forgiving her.

    I admit too that I’ve made some not so clever choices in my life. I rushed into marriage too young, to a non-Christian, and started a family very quickly. Then within that first week of our child’s life I was in a mental hospital with post-natal depression. Becoming a mother, I realise decades later, I flipped. The last thing I wanted was to be a mother as my mother had been towards me.

    Being put into a mental hospital is horrid, I can tell you. I’ve been put in one three times, after which I came to think about myself as someone who is mentally ill. I’ve really struggled with that.

    For 10 or so years I didn’t go to church. Looking back I wonder did God allow that, or even cause it that way. Brokenness is somewhere in the heart of the Gospel, yet my experience is that people even in church find brokenness hard to accept, for they’re uncomfortable with it. They seem to want to fix it. They seem to ask, ‘Why don’t you tow the party line and be healed?’

    People can be very unkind and add to the hurt. Having experienced so much pain, I concluded I must be a bad person who sinned. But it’s God choice who he heals, and when, and in what way. To this day I struggle with depression and still carry the imposed thought, ‘If only you forgave you’d be set free; be healed.’

    I know that perhaps it was not a wise choice to marry a non-Christian. I still hear the question, ‘Were you a Christian when you married him?’ The implications are, ‘You did wrong, you’ve only yourself to blame’. It’s difficult. Though the drive of his life, his motives, are completely different from mine, still I love him and want the best for him. I am told he is my spiritual sand-paper.

    After all, I read, ‘Wives respect your husbands.’ I also read, ‘Do not separate what God has put together.’ Who is to say that my marriage is outside God’s plan? If others don’t know what to say they might do well to remain silent, because now I have even more things to forgive.

    About 2 years ago things went very pear-shaped when everything fell apart around me, like a tsunami in my life. I even questioned God’s existence. I wanted to walk away from God. But I’ve come to know that ‘God’s arm is not too short’, and he cannot let me go. I belong to him.

    It feels like I’m buried under a huge mountain of forgiving I have to deal with. Can I summon up enough faith to move this mountain and believe it will be moved? I just don’t know where to begin, for it feels like a daunting task. I know I should forgive and that God’s grace is sufficient.

    Jesus tells us clearly the consequences if we do not forgive others their sins, and also the results when we do. However, on the cross Jesus gave responsibility of forgiving to his Father, even though quite evidently it was he who was being sinned against.

    Through all of this, I know that God is at work in my life. Even though I still sometimes feel like the unforgiving servant I know there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. He is working his purpose out, in and through me. God has not finished with me. This is not the end of the story, and that gives me hope.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Facing Fears after Forgiveness by Lucy Marfleet

    Although we may have forgiven someone who hurt us, we might yet still harbour fears that they, or someone else, may hurt us again in a similar way. Those fears might rule our hearts. Lucy Marfleet shows how she was freed of these types of binding fears. Please read her encouraging story.

    I don’t remember much about learning the piano. I do remember the fear though. It accompanied every lesson, starting in my stomach as I was driven every Saturday morning and reinforced in every scale and arpeggio I had to practise through the week. It played out in my nervous and incapable fingers and it cast shadows through my young mind.

    I hated learning the piano, I remember that much. I was only at primary school, but had been raced through several grades with no option of stopping lessons.

    I don’t think it was the piano itself though.

    It was my piano teacher. He made me desperately uncomfortable. I wanted to please him, but I felt watched, judged, small and incompetent. He came up and sat close to play duets or show me what I was doing wrong, sometimes reaching his arm around me. He drew glasses on my music, ostensibly to draw my attention to places I needed to work at. I saw in the small pencil doodles his eyes watching me, even when I was at home. I didn’t want to look at them.

    When he died a few years after I finally stopped lessons, my mum commented that as a child I had said I loved him. I had forgotten that. Sometimes children say that sort of thing about their teachers. But there had been such mixed feelings about him. I couldn’t understand at eight or nine why I was scared; I felt sharp and flat all at once when I was around him – eager to get his praise, terrified of his presence, his nearness, his criticism.

    And there was a sad edge to the experience. He had died by suicide, with the reason being because the police had found unhealthy pictures of children on his computer. Was he overstepping the mark with me? Hardly – I cannot recollect anything sinister he did or said. But he exerted power over me in ways which terrified me. These days you might bracket it as grooming.

    I was terrified of men for some years after the experience, finding ways to avoid being alone with them, dressing unattractively, wanting to prove myself in my own right. The fears didn’t stop there either. I feared elements associated with the lessons, with the piano teacher, with music and particularly with physical contact. I made mental and emotional blocks and guarded myself against anything which reminded me of failing.

    God didn’t want to leave me there.

    Slowly over the following years, each area of fear was challenged as my trust grew. It started with forgiveness.

    I had to learn my need for forgiveness. That forgiving in practice is so much more hard work than the theory. That there is no quick fix. Forgiveness meant letting go of the grips of fear, even the fears I was gripping on to. God gently and slowly led me through each fear and helped me overcome them.

    I was scared of failure. It took two years of my life working and studying in the world of engineering, culminating in an incredibly bad set of results at university, to show me that I was not cut out for it. I had to retake my exams in order to change subject. I got down to intensive study, passed each module and transferred to a subject which I love: theology. The failure was a step towards a more positive future. Later I failed to get funding to do my masters in biblical studies in a good UK university. This failure too was met by an unexpected opportunity to study in Prague instead. Studying at the International Baptist Theological Seminary has opened up other exciting doors through contacts I’ve made there. I have learned to embrace failure rather than fear it.

    I was scared of men. This was a big fear; perhaps the major one for me. In my mid-twenties I had never had a boyfriend and assumed I never would. Who could I trust? How could I touch them? I shunned physical contact. I opened up to my minister, who prayed with me. Less than a month later, God spoke to me as I sat at a table with a group of other Christians that I was about to meet my husband. It was true; I did. He was even an engineer. Those two years getting inside the mindset of engineers turned out to be worthwhile after all. God brought me a gentle man who was willing to learn to love me well. It took me months to be willing to let him kiss me, but we both realised that God’s timing made perfect sense.

    Telling images – on the left, me in 1996, trying to smile, but trying to hide my body shape. On the right, me in 2011, two kids later and frightened no more!

    I hated music. Despite playing in music groups in churches, I very rarely connected emotionally with it. But God loves music; I’m sure of it. Gradually over time I was able to dissociate myself from feelings of anger or apathy and learn to enjoy it, to even seek it out and learn new things. There are ways music can be used to express things words can’t say alone.

    I hated feeling small, voiceless, insignificant. God’s underlying grace has carried me through so many storms, including many days of deep depression as I yearned for wholeness and significance. When I was weak God strengthened me and gave me purposes in helping others at home and abroad, and moved me from self-damaging thoughts to being able to champion the needs of the voiceless. He has much still to do with me. I am still very much a Work in Progress.

    But my story is that forgiveness has opened up a road to healing and wholeness. This journey God has been taking me on gets better as I understand more of his mercies in action. I have shifted from a minor to a major key emotionally. Now I understand that God is Good, and that Good Things are Going to Happen.

    Lucy writes at www.lucymarfleet.com and www.jamandgiraffes.com. She has degrees in theology from Durham University and the International Baptist Theological Seminary. She is also a trained teacher and has worked in schools and prisons. Her writing stems from a passion for the Old Testament and for those on the edges. Recently she completed a series on interviewing biblical characters for Families First online magazine. She tries to tell the truth in imaginative ways.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Forgiveness is Freeing by Lynne Cole

    When it comes to forgiveness, everyone is different. I love Lynne’s story for her honesty and how she tells the gradual nature of her becoming free from carrying someone else’s sins, as she puts it so aptly. I continue to be humbled and grateful for the bravery displayed by the contributors to this series, such as Lynne.

    There I was, standing in a spot where his grave might have been, and I’m griping tightly onto an A4 piece of paper. A piece of paper that held the truth of what actually happened to me during four years when I grew up too quickly.

    Looking around, all I see is green grass with very few markings of where graves could be. I expected to see at least a head stone with his name etched into it… something that would make it real. But there was nothing. Only little numbered markers dotted around declaring where each person is buried. With there being no grave stone or a recognisable grave, I concluded that he had no meaning to his life.

    Standing there, I remember clearly when my mother told me, 21 years earlier, that he had passed away. It was four months after he was arrested. He hadn’t even reached the first hearing of his trial.

    My memories of that day are vivid. I was so angry that he had “escaped” his prison sentence, and I felt betrayed because he was now “free”. I also remember feeling relieved. He was dead… and I was glad. I hoped that he had met God at the pearly gates of heaven and that he was sent straight to rot in hell.

    I know, I know and I know. This sounds very unchristian. I am fully aware of that. However, this was how I felt towards the man who had sexually abused me for four years. After all, he took away my childhood.

    I wanted him to suffer so much for the pain and hurt that he caused me. I wanted him to feel the pain that I felt…Not just in those four years, but the years afterwards that I had to endure I as tried to come to terms with what I went through.

    When I stood at the graveside with my mum on one side and my husband on the other, I held on to that piece of paper as though it was part of me. This piece of paper held all the truth of every single detail that he did to me.

    Every. Single. Detail.

    You see, when I was 11 I was too scared and too ashamed to voice what truly happened to me. No-one EVER got the full truth, and that truth had been inside me for 21 years. At the graveside, I finally let it all out… And then I burnt it. In that moment, the spirit of condemnation left my body and I was free.

    Four years later, I look back and I question myself if I have still forgiven my abuser – just in case my time at the grave was a passing moment. The honest answer is yes! I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone, but I wouldn’t change what I went through either. I no longer feel shame over what I had endured and I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that I have no regrets about my past.

    I am proud of who I am today.

    Forgiving my abuser did not mean what he did to me was right. It also does not mean that I would get my childhood back. Instead, forgiving him meant that I could move forward with my life. I have learnt that unforgiveness keeps us locked in to anger, resentment, bitterness and hurt. It keeps us apart from Jesus.

    I didn’t get to the point of forgiveness lightly and reaching it wasn’t one of these “aha” moments when something clicked into place. Rather it took me 21 years that lead to the moment at his grave, of sorting through a mountain of emotional mess, through counselling and reading various books, to reach the point where I wanted to be free from the chains of unforgiveness. I no longer wanted to carry the burden of someone else’s sin.

    Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

    I believe that forgiveness is necessary in order to move forward, but it can only be done when you are ready to do so. No-one should be forced to forgive someone else if they are not ready. It doesn’t matter how long it takes either… 2 years or 21 years… but when it happens? Forgiveness is freeing.

    Lynne Cole is a full-time working, married mother to 3 gorgeous children…two girls (aged 8 and 7) and a little man (aged 5). She blogs in the free time that she has, which is very little! She believes that a broken past does not mean a broken future and that we are all beautiful despite what we have been through. Her desire is that she is able to give people a little encouragement and hope through what she writes. She writes from the heart, honestly, about anything… things that have happened in the past, what she is going through right now and what she hopes for the future.

    Come visit her at:
    Blog: www.beautifullybroke.org
    Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/beautifullybroke.org/
    Instagram: lynne.cole