Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Forgiveness Fridays

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

  • Forgiveness Fridays: Reconciliation and forgiveness by CF Dunn

    When I consider those who construct fictional worlds seemingly from thin air, I’m in awe. For the stories we read move us, touching us in deep places that perhaps nonfiction cannot reach – or at least in a strikingly different way. Claire Dunn shares how her five-book series explores some of the truths of the heart – including forgiveness.

    And throughout all Eternity
    I forgive you, you forgive me.
    As our dear Redeemer said:
    “This the Wine, and this the Bread.”
    –William Blake

    Fiona Lloyd wrote movingly last week about learning to forgive herself and knowing she is beloved by God with all her human flaws. This is something that has also preoccupied me as a writer as I explore the lives of fictional characters and reflect upon my own.

    The need to forgive touches the very heart of us and is not merely a form of words, but an act of love and understanding. There are many calls on us to forgive: the ill-judged words that unwittingly wound, the book lent and not returned, the thank you letter unwritten – small things in themselves that leave no lasting sting, but still require a ‘sorry’ or a hug. But how can someone forgive a grievous offence, a life-changing event, or a slight intended to destroy?

    This is something explored in The Secret of the Journal series, where young Emma D’Eresby has cocooned herself in her world of work as a historian. She is fleeing from her past and finds refuge in the lives of other people. History cannot hurt you, she says; it is dead and gone. However, detached from the world, she has failed to face the truth about her own past as if by leaving it unvoiced it would somehow be forgotten, and in being forgotten lack the potency to hurt. But, like a festering wound that needs to be scoured, Emma had to examine her relationships with her own history before she can finally heal.

    Emma knows she is redeemed, she understands why, but she does not feel it deep inside, and she has come to rely on her own resources. She has built a fictional world around herself in which she can hide from God and from herself. Or so she thinks. Only when she is shaken from the safety of her bubble by a string of events does she begin to face the truth. Looking the demons of her past in the eye is the first step towards healing inside out, and she forgives those who have hurt her most. Yet, while Emma is able to forgive others, she reserves judgment for herself, for how can she be forgiven when she cannot look at God in case she sees condemnation there? She has missed the point.

    I wrote The Secret of the Journal series as romantic mystery-suspense laced with history, but at its very heart lies a tale of acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness.

    The act of forgiving is a gift. Forgiveness lies within for how can you absolve another if you have not first forgiven yourself? Love is not our own, but a state of grace bestowed on us by a loving God. Forgiveness is a two-way deal.

    Writing as CF Dunn, Claire Dunn is a Christian novelist writing historical and contemporary suspense fiction for the general market. Her debut novel Mortal Fire – published by Lion Fiction – won the gold medal for adult romance in the Book Of The Year Awards, 2012, and was nominated for Best Novel by CRT in the same year.

    Alongside her first loves of family, history and writing, CF Dunn is passionate about the education and welfare of children with dyslexia, autism and communication difficulties, and runs a special needs school, which she founded in Kent with her husband.

    Book five of The Secret of the Journal series – Fearful Symmetry – was recently released in the UK and USA, bringing the series to a heart-stopping conclusion. She is currently writing the first book in a Medieval suspense trilogy and drinking too much coffee.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: This time, it’s personal by Fiona Lloyd

    Forgiveness has so many facets, and Fiona Lloyd touches on one we often overlook. I love her thoughts in this post, and invite you to take a moment to read and ponder.

    There’s a woman at my church who really gets on my nerves. It’s not that she deliberately sets out to antagonise me: in fact, I know she means well. If I wrote a list of the ways she offends me, you’d probably think I’m overreacting. But when she admits she’s failed (yet again) to follow through on a promise to pray for someone, or confesses she’s missed another opportunity to share her faith, I can’t help cringing inside. I know I should be forgiving, but all too often, critical phrases jostle for attention at the forefront of my mind, leaving little space for gracious words.

    If at this point you’re tempted to pull up the comments box and offer a timely reminder about specks and planks, please bear with me. In case you haven’t guessed – and at the risk of being self-indulgent – this irritating individual I find it so difficult to forgive is me.

    Why is it that we can read and understand Jesus’ words about the need to forgive one another, but fail to apply this to ourselves? However offensive the actions of others towards us, we generally accept that Jesus meant exactly what he said in this regard – even if the reality feels harder than attempting Everest in roller-skates! But somehow, the need to extend the same abundant grace to ourselves doesn’t register. We agonise over simple mistakes and clumsily-spoken words. We clutter our thinking with regrets and what ifs, beating ourselves up over what might-have-been, if only we hadn’t been such a pathetic example of what it means to follow Jesus.

    For the last few years, I’ve picked a word to focus on for the year, based on the book My One Word, by Mike Ashcraft and Rachel Olsen. In 2016, my word was beloved. I have to confess I felt intimidated by this word. In my prayer times, I dropped unsubtle hints to God that maybe He would like to give me an alternative. I did my best to consider other options; mostly pro-active words (such as honour or serve) that would allow me the opportunity to be more self-critical. But it was no use: beloved clung to me like a stray piece of sticky tape.

    Photo: Pixabay

    For the first couple of months, I kept my word at arms’ length. I knew in my head that I was – and still am – a beloved daughter of God, but allowing that truth to take up residence in my heart was far too threatening. I struggle with making myself vulnerable, and acknowledging that I was His beloved would require me to dismantle the barbed-wire fence of self-criticism I had constructed over many years as a protective mechanism.

    The challenge of my word was that in taking it seriously, I had to learn to listen afresh to what God thinks about me, rather than clinging to my own blinkered perspective. All too often, my names for myself run along the lines of failure, no-hoper and misfit; but God calls me beloved, acceptable and included. Furthermore, He tells me I am forgiven. He’s aware all the times I’ve wandered off and ignored Him. He sees the minor slip-ups and the whopping great messes that are far too embarrassing to share in a blog post. He knows it all, and He still delights in me. His forgiveness is not based on my ability (or otherwise) to earn his approval, but on His tremendous love for me; a love that sent Jesus to sacrifice Himself in my place.

    So, if God finds it easy to forgive me, why should I persist in condemning myself? It’s a slow process, but I’m learning to reject the harsh words that spring to mind whenever I get things wrong. And in choosing to receive God’s forgiveness, I am also taking the decision to forgive and accept myself. I’m starting to feel more at ease with the notion of being God’s beloved. The ugly names I’ve called myself in the past have (mostly) lost their power – and I’m convinced that every time I opt for forgiveness rather than self-loathing, their grip loosens a little more.

    Lewis B Smedes once wrote: To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. Forgiving one another is a vital part of the Christian life; but to fully experience the freedom Jesus offers, we must also learn to forgive ourselves.

    Fiona Lloyd lives in Leeds with her husband, where she pretends not to mind that her three children have grown up and are moving on. She spends her working days teaching violin in local schools, and her spare time doing as much writing as she can get away with. She worships at her local Baptist church, and is a member of the worship-leading team. Fiona blogs at fjlloyd.wordpress.com, and you can find her on Twitter at @FionaJLloyd. She is vice-chair of the Association of Christian Writers.

  • Forgiveness Fridays: The Journey of Forgiveness by David Faulkner

    Forgiveness is a journey – a truth Dave Faulkner reminds us of in his story of being wronged. People aren’t machines who can immediately forgive. Sometimes we receive the grace to forgive right away, but many times it may take a whole lot longer…

    Beans on toast. That was my special meal for my thirtieth birthday.

    I was a single man, training for the ministry in Manchester, living in halls of residence. My friends John and Judy invited me to their flat to celebrate in true economic student style. At the end of the evening, John offered to call a taxi to take me back to my hall of residence. Being an experienced city dweller (and wanting to save money), I declined. I said I knew where it was safe to walk.

    Big mistake. A teenage thug cornered me. In one kick, he removed my glasses, which smashed on the pavement, and he injured my eye. Not realising I was a mere student, he demanded I took him home for him to take my TV. Eventually, he got away with my wallet, containing £7 and my credit and debit cards.

    Limping back to hall, friends gave me first aid. One called my bank to cancel the plastic money. Another – a former solicitor – took me to the police station and waited with me until I had finished my statement at four in the morning. A few days later, an optician assured me there was no permanent damage to my eye.

    Local gossip told me that the hoodlum was well known in the area. Yet the Police never arrested him. I don’t think they made much effort.

    I’m grateful that most people gave me space to get over the shock. That took longer than the injuries. Having grown up in urban London, my confidence in my own judgement took the greatest battering. So much for walking a lit-up route.

    The only unhelpful person was a tutor who put a time limit on my emotional recovery – after which, he declared, I should seek counselling. He meant well, but I was glad no-one else quantified my ideal recovery period.

    As I recovered, I found people asking me one common question: if you’re a Christian and you believe in forgiveness, would you have co-operated in a prosecution, had the offender been apprehended?

    My considered answer was yes, but it was a qualified affirmative. For the sake of society, I would have given evidence in any court case. But I would only have pressed charges once I knew I held no more resentment in my heart against him, and that my reason for doing so was for the protection of the community, not personal revenge.

    Regardless of the Police’s failure to arrest a known thug, it was a while before I got to the point of no resentment. Forgiveness is a journey, and we forget that. I have heard horrendous stories of Christians suffering unspeakable wrongs – even rape – and the only response from their church has been, ‘Have you forgiven him?’ There is no acknowledgement of the injustice or the violation, all that is administered is a theological tick-box questionnaire.

    I know it’s well meant: we don’t want people dying in an acid bath of prolonged bitterness. But when we rush to insist on forgiveness, it may not be forgiveness that is produced. For rather than feeling the pain and then releasing the perpetrator in forgiveness, the sufferer suppresses her anger.

    Suppressed anger has to find a way out: Jack will not stay in the box forever. The coiled spring of suppressed anger can come to the surface in all sorts of unhealthy ways. One is depression.

    If you know someone who has been greatly wronged, I urge you to walk with them on a journey to forgiveness. Be present, and be patient in our instant-on world for the slow work of grace.

    You may just help them to a deeper and truer forgiveness than if you had insisted they flick a spiritual switch.

    Dave Faulkner is a Methodist minister in Surrey. He is married with two children. He enjoys digital photography and creative writing. His latest blog project is at www.confessionsofamisfit.com.

     

    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 life raft of forgiveness by Abbie Robson

    How can we forgive when the one hurting us doesn’t change? Abbie Robson invites us to explore this daunting question with her powerful story of forgiveness.

    When I was a kid, my dad drank. A lot.

    It’s hard to pull apart the memories, but I remember alcohol always being there, even before I knew it was a problem. I remember being afraid, and feeling guilty, although I still don’t know for what. And I remember frequently being disappointed, for every time he said he was going to stop drinking, I naively believed him. It never lasted.

    Fast forward to adulthood. My dad drinks. A lot.

    When I wrote my first book, Secret Scars, I was encouraged by my editor to end it on a happy note. Whilst I didn’t claim in the book that he had stopped drinking, the epilogue certainly suggested that our relationship had been repaired. The truth is, we’re still on the merry-go-round – up and down, round and round, the same arguments over and over again.

    I’d always thought that when it was all over, and he stopped drinking, then I’d forgive him. I thought that forgiveness came at the end of the sin, with the forgiven party who would go and sin no more. I had this innocent idea that he would see the light, stop drinking, apologise profusely for everything he’d put us though and beg for forgiveness. I pictured a happy family reunion with tears and hugs and a happy-every-after. As it turns out, I’m probably not going to get this hoped-for resolution. I’ve had to come to the sad but inevitable conclusion that my dad will almost certainly never remain sober for more than a couple of months.

    Thinking about forgiving someone when they can’t or won’t change is tricky. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’m putting myself in the firing line for getting hurt. He says sorry; I forgive him; I let my guard down; he starts drinking… and repeat.

    So what does forgiveness look like when you can’t see an end to the behaviour you’re supposed to be forgiving? It’s a road often travelled by those of us affected by addiction. Forgiveness feels futile when it’s shrouded in the knowledge that it will probably just keep happening. But since God has commanded us to forgive, it must be possible. He never says it is easy, but he wouldn’t command us to do something that can’t be done.

    I need to be clear here. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that everything is ok, or that the things someone does or has done are acceptable**. What it does mean is that I can go to my parents’ house and spend time with my dad, without constantly thinking about what happened last time. It means I can hold a conversation with him about the things that interest us. Will I end up coming away hurt or upset at the end of each visit? Probably. But through my new way of consistently offering him forgiveness, I don’t arrive expecting to be hurt; nor am I still wounded and raw from the last time.

    For me, this woundedness is the crux of the whole thing. What I’ve come to learn (much slower than I would have liked) is that forgiving my father actually has very little to do with him. Rather, forgiving him has become about saving myself. When someone keeps on hurting you, there comes a time when the answer becomes forgive, or sink. Forgiveness is a life raft in a situation where nothing else can change. Forgiveness keeps me safe from being hurt over and over again. As a friend of mine says, unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison then waiting for the rat to die. Each time I see my dad I come away with new baggage, and the only way I can deal with it is to bring it to God and forgive, and forgive and forgive.

    So, my advice? Start where you are. Don’t wait until everything is hunky dory to begin forgiving, and don’t wait for all the loose ends to be tied up; now is the time. Trust God to put before you what he wants you to deal with, knowing that his love and timing are perfect, and that forgiveness is his gift to you. It’s not about the other person’s sin – it’s about our freedom.

    ** A very important disclaimer: If someone is hurting you regularly, or if you are unsafe in a relationship or situation, do not stay. Forgiving someone abusive is tricky, but is not the same as staying somewhere or with someone who puts you at risk. I am in the situation where I can continually forgive my father because we don’t live in the same house, and he doesn’t pose any threat to me. Do not stay anywhere you are not safe.

    Abbie has been writing ever since she could hold a pencil. She wrote a memoir, Secret Scars (Authentic, 2007), and later, Insight Into Self-Harm (CWR, 2014). She founded and directs Adullam Ministries, an information and resource website and forum about self-harm and related issues. She blogs at Pink and Blue Mummyland and tweets as @AbbieRobson and @AdullamSelfHarm. She lives in Rugby with husband John, children Amelia and Seth, and two cats who still haven’t learned that they don’t run the house.

    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: Total Transformation by Andrea Gardiner

    Death, drug-trafficking, and desolation – but none are a match for the transforming power of forgiveness. Today’s contribution by Andrea Gardiner reveals a story of new life, birthed by repentance and forgiveness.

    Nine-year-old Jessica walked home from school to find her mother shot dead on the floor of their house in rural Ecuador. In the end, it was determined that her mum had died by suicide. Jessica’s father, Edwin, was a drug trafficker who made frequent trips to and from Colombia with the illegal substances.

    As her father was a heavy drinker, Jessica could never be sure what state he would be in when he came home. Jessica was taken in by her aunt. But a year later, Jessica’s father had become a Christian, was attending church regularly, and had totally given up drink, drugs and smoking. He was working hard in the fields, raising pigs, finding work for teenage lads, and re-establishing a relationship with his first wife, Maria.

    Maria had three sons with Edwin, but he had left her for Jessica’s mother. She had much to count against him; she had to bring their sons up alone, struggling to feed and clothe them without work. The eldest boy had left home to find work as a young teenager. But she, being a faithful member of her church, chose to forgive. She took him back into her home and they re-established their marriage. All their sons came home, and Jessica moved in with them.

    Edwin and his children.

    Now, they are an example of a hard-working, community-spirited family. When you visit them, laughs, love and words of faith abound. People look at them and comment, “When I see the change in Edwin and his family, there is no way I can deny the existence of God. Only God can change a man and a family like that.”

    I have had the privilege of witnessing this transformation. It is a transformation only forgiveness can bring. Theirs is a forgiveness which put the past in God’s hands and opened the way for reconciliation and renewal. There is no bitterness, only healing and a vibrant testimony of the power of the cross. It is truly breath-taking.

    Andrea Gardiner has been a missionary working for Project Ecuador since 2005. You can find out more about the work in Ecuador on www.projectecuador.co.uk and read more about Edwin’s story in Guinea Pig for Brunch, available on Amazon.

     

    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: Untying the Rope by Peter Edman

    Forgiveness bringing healing – I love Peter Edman’s post about some of the American Bible Society‘s work in countries affected by war and strife. Read on to be inspired; I love the rope exercise and would have included it in The Living Cross had I come across it before publication!

     What does forgiveness have to do with healing after trauma? I think everything.

    In recent years, one of my work responsibilities has been supporting the product line for the trauma healing model administered by American Bible Society. The first programs launched in central Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and subsequent atrocities in eastern DR Congo. Churches asked for help in dealing with entire populations affected by PTSD and complex trauma.

    Fifteen years later and our church and NGO partners have served millions on every continent and nearly 100 countries, addressing not only post-war populations but people overwhelmed by abuse, natural disasters, and trauma from military service, urban poverty, and more. The latest activity reports on my screen are from Nashville, Kampala, Beirut, Manila, Georgetown (Suriname), and Kathmandu.

    Rwandan students in a Trauma Healing seminar.

    Reasons for this cross-cultural uptake seem to include the model’s holistic faith-based approach, its focus on empowering local leaders, and continual refinement after partner feedback. But I credit much of its effectiveness to clear and practical teaching on forgiveness.

    I see many trauma healing testimonies and photos, usually from week-long equipping sessions where local church leaders learn to facilitate small groups and apply best practices in mental health in a biblical context. Particularly in places like Congo and more recently in the Middle East, those church leaders themselves are traumatized. They need to deal with their own pain before they can help their neighbors. As your flight attendant says, put on your own oxygen mask first.

    Often the testimonies mention the effects of releasing emotional pain through lament or facilitated listening and (for those willing) giving that pain to Jesus. But I’ve noticed that the people who get most out of the program, who make the greatest progress from zombie-like severe PTSD to resilience and flourishing, are those with the courage to take the hard steps toward forgiving their perpetrators.

    Widows in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have taken part in the program.

    I’ve learned that emotions are quite literally energy. In PTSD, our emotional energy is directed inward. We are cut off from relationships, even from ourselves. We’re stuck on a mental gerbil wheel, a cycle of pain, flashbacks, and avoidance. The resulting hyperactivity in the endocrine system leads to aches, heart disease, autoimmune issues, and more. Little energy is left for simple life tasks like bathing and cooking, let alone more relational activities like learning, business, and government.

    The same thing happens, less intensely, when we fail to forgive someone who has wronged us. Unforgiveness does not hurt the perpetrator. Quite simply, it hurts us.

    A popular part of our program is the rope exercise, a skit about forgiveness. One participant plays the part of someone who has been wronged. She is tied back to back with a participant who represents the friend who wronged her. Then she acts out the instructions: When she takes a walk, or has breakfast, or prays, or sleeps, her friend is there with her. There is no escape without forgiveness. Only she can untie the rope. A variant of the exercise uses a longer rope to tie in all the people she won’t forgive—a parent, a boss, a spouse—until the person is dragging around a small crowd. The exercises are always accompanied with laughter, but nobody misses the point.

    One testimony that struck me was from a pastor in Uganda’s Nakivale refugee camp. He had been in the camp all his life, preaching and serving as best he could. After the lesson on forgiveness in our program, he publicly repented for years of bad preaching. He would explain how important it was to forgive—even using the same passage from Matthew 18 that grounds our lesson—but he offered no practical steps to forgiveness and had muddled the definition by also demanding acceptance and reconciliation. So he only made hurt people feel more guilt and pain.

    A man in a Burundi prison models how forgiveness can interrupt cycles of violence. He had been sent to prison unjustly. In prison, he had plotted violent revenge on the cousin whose false testimony had convicted him. But understanding forgiveness freed him from bitterness and spared his family further heartache.

    Most of the people we work with have a lot to forgive. But when they find the resources to let go of bitterness, the energy that is released can touch whole communities. In one town in Congo I visited, the many war widows who participated in the program are banding together to support each other. They have formed enterprise cooperatives and launched more than a dozen new churches.

    Jesus teaches that we must forgive—but I suspect this command is only a necessary condition: if we cannot forgive, we will not have the capacity to accept the forgiveness and abundant life that Jesus makes possible.

    To find out more, visit Traumahealinginstitute.org and As We Forgive and Hope Rising.

    Peter Edman, an editor, is a quality assurance manager with American Bible Society, where he also manages the product line for trauma healing programs now active for adults and children in more than 80 countries and 150 languages worldwide. He lives with his wife and five children in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. You can reach him at @pledman.

    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: A tangible example of the forgiveness of Jesus by Claire Musters

    When I think of Claire Musters, whom I’ve known for several years professionally and personally, I think of her smile. Never could I have imagined her story from nearly two decades ago. (You’ll see what I mean when you read on below.) That I don’t count her as “damaged goods” reveals to me the nature of God’s forgiveness. When he forgives, our slates are wiped clean. Alleluia!

    Our lives were shattered – lying about in little pieces on the floor. And the worst thing was that it was pretty much all down to me. I had chosen to believe the lies, especially the one that whispered that my husband didn’t care about me. I believed it because he worked around the clock in a recording studio and there was little left of him when he was at home. I believed it because my heart was hurting and I was lonely…

    Vulnerable and foolish

    As a woman who had grown up with self-esteem issues, I didn’t deal well with feeling abandoned. When I came before God with my feelings that I didn’t matter to my husband, His answer was that He wanted to take care of me and show me how to lean on Him completely. But I threw it back in His face. I needed someone who could hug me – and God just didn’t seem physical enough at the time.

    But this put me in danger of allowing my emotional needs to be fed by other sources. Eventually, a friendship with another man in my church, which had started innocently enough, resulted with us deciding to leave everything behind and to start a new life together. With our actions we devastated the lives of my husband, the man’s wife and all the other members of our close-knit church community.

    Lost

    Two weeks later he chose to go back to his wife. I was left reeling, feeling totally deserted – but also knowing I deserved it all. Tellingly, it was my husband whom I rang once the other guy left. After all, my husband had been my best friend since I was a teenager so it seemed natural and I called him without thinking. How hard it must have been for him to take me back home, watch me huddled in the foetal position, sobbing endlessly. The next day he moved me, and a lot of my belongings, to my parents’ home where I was to stay until I had healed enough to discover what was next for my life.

    I had lost everything by wrongfully pinning my hopes on another human being rather than God. And I was like a wounded animal at times – licking my wounds, lashing out, wanting to be left alone. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for my husband going home, getting up for work each day and not knowing whether our marriage was salvageable.

    Of course, we had deep issues that needed dealing with within our marriage. But I had to get to a place, first, of believing there was a future there. That I could look past all the years of hurt and misunderstanding and repent as well as forgive, and move on.

    A taste of real love

    When my husband visited me, at times I felt a little suffocated, as I knew he was trying his best to win me back. But, most of the time, he was gracious, gentle and loving, knowing also when to give me space. How he responded to me during that horrific time of limbo taught me what real love is. He showed me Jesus’ love for me in a very tangible way.

    I had used him terribly – basically turned my back on him – and all our friends knew about it. And yet he was there, whenever I felt I could see him, a solid anchor who remained firm. He showed me that, even though I had done the worst thing I could to him, his love for me hadn’t faltered. He proved, over and over again, that he wanted our marriage to work.

    Yes, we had counselling. And yes, we both had to face up to our failings, to understand the responsibility we had for one another and the changes that needed to occur. But his gentle patience during that time melted my hardened, broken heart. Even after I was back home, there would be moments when I would be wracked with emotional pain all over again and he would just hold me, caring for me through the tears.

    Salvation through sacrifice

    I know it must have been so, so excruciatingly difficult for him, and he certainly laid down his life for me. He also spoke to his bosses about what was going on, and the result was a miracle: studios always work around the clock but they agreed to put into practise the unheard of rule that the studio my husband ran would close by 8pm. Yes, his sacrifice saved our marriage – and revealed another layer of God’s love to me in such a powerful way.

    Although this period of time was more than 16 years ago now, I can’t help but think of my husband’s loving sacrifice anytime I ponder the concept of forgiveness. You can read more of our story, and the passion for authentic openness that it birthed inside of me, in my forthcoming book: Taking off the mask: learning to live authentically.

    Claire Musters is an author, speaker and editor, mum to two gorgeous children, pastor’s wife, worship leader and school governor. Claire’s desire is to help others draw closer to God through her writing, which focuses on authenticity, marriage, parenting, worship, discipleship, issues facing women today etc. Her books include Taking your Spiritual Pulse, CWR’s Insight Into Managing Conflict and Insight Into Self-acceptance, Cover to Cover: David A man after God’s own heart and BRF Foundations21 study guides on Prayer and Jesus. She also writes Bible study notes, and her next co-written book, Insight Into Burnout, is due out in February. She is also working on her own book: Taking off the mask: learning to live authentically. This was borne out of the experience that she describes above. To find out more about her, please visit www.clairemusters.com and @CMusters on Twitter.

    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 – ‘I am that woman!’

    Forgiveness is freedom – it’s an adage I often say, but one that Tania Vaughan embodies as she shares, “I am that woman.” The sinner. The spit upon. The one greatly loved who is forgiven. What a moving and faith-building narrative – may we all know that same freedom.

    Heading to Luke chapter 7 and the story of ‘A sinful woman forgiven’ in a series about forgiveness may seem rather obvious but this story has always touched me. I am that woman.

    Because I recognise her, I am amazed at the bravery she shows in entering the home of Simon the Pharisee. She was the kind of woman who was not accepted in polite circles and would not have been invited to dinner. It’s possible some of the men knew her, maybe intimately. They certainly knew who and what kind of woman she was. Yet none of them spoke it out loud.

    I’m sure it was obvious to her that they knew by the looks they gave her and each other. No-one said it but they were thinking it. In the passage it says that Simon ‘said to himself’, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:39 NRSV). She was the kind of woman who should not be touching a rabbi.

    I was that kind of woman. Maybe I didn’t sell myself, but I sold myself short. Long before I knew Jesus I filled an empty and broken life with drinking and men. I lived on the fringe of polite circles where everyone knew what kind of woman I was, some personally. In company no-one said a word but they sent sidelong glances to me and passed knowing looks between themselves. I was not the kind of woman you invited in.

    Jesus reached out to me, a woman like that!

    The woman in the story wasn’t invited in to dinner but she entered the house; maybe it was a house she knew but she wasn’t welcome. She stood beside Jesus and poured her tears out on him, washing his feet. What gave her the courage to enter someone’s home and do that? It’s the same thing that gives me the courage to stand and tell my story without shame.

    It’s knowing unconditional love, acceptance and unquestioning forgiveness. Not just receiving all of that but having faith in the giver and faith to receive it. Jesus says to her ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’ (Luke 7:50 NRSV).

    Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. A woman washes Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee. circa 1615. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum.

    Having the faith to receive forgiveness is much harder than it sounds. Although for many years I believed that God had forgiven me, I had no faith in that forgiveness and had not forgiven myself. I could not go in peace.

    Jesus not only pours out an abundance of forgiveness giving us courage to stand. He pours himself into us giving us the faith to forgive ourselves. It was only when I had accepted Jesus within me and forgiven myself that I had the courage to speak.

    That woman was brave and could stand in a room where people knew who and what she was not because Jesus forgave her but because she accepted his forgiveness and took it upon herself. I am that woman.

    Tania Vaughan is a speaker and writer. She loves teaching from the Bible and sharing her testimony at events and conferences to encourage women into a deeper relationship with God. Tania is currently studying Theology at Trinity College in Bristol and working as a freelance web designer to fund her studies (www.hartandesign.com).

    You can find out more about Tania, read devotions, listen to audio teaching and book her to speak at your event through her website www.taniavaughan.com.

    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: How an abused wife forgave

    I read my first guest author’s contribution through tears, humbled at her courage and bravery. How she kept going, and how she was able to forgive, is the mystery we will explore in this series. I can’t thank her enough for being so open in sharing her story. For reasons of protecting her children, she asked not to be named. Trigger warning – abuse.

    I knew I had to act the day I came home and found my thirteen-year-old screwed up in a ball on the floor screaming out of fear of her father.

    It was the culmination of a long saga of abuse, control and unfaithfulness and I was the proverbial frog in the kettle. By the time it began to dawn on me that I didn’t have to be treated like this and that I was not a failure but was being wronged by the man I loved, I felt it was too late to get out.

    I had made my marriage vows before God, I’d had every reason to believe my husband was a godly man – he was a deacon and the church youth leader – and as far as I could see from the story of God making a covenant with Abraham, a covenant is unilateral. Just because my husband didn’t keep to what he had promised before God, that didn’t entitle me to disregard my own vows. I believed that in the great scheme of things my faithfulness was more important than my happiness, and to a large extent I still stand by that. But I can now see, as I couldn’t then, that there comes a time when you should and must get out.

    By the time of finding my daughter in a heap on the floor, I had been married to my husband for 27 years. I sent her to a safe friend’s for the weekend and went away to a retreat centre to pray about what to do. My church pastors urged me to get him out of the house for everyone’s safety but I had to hear it from God for myself. While I was away, an incident happened with my eldest daughter, then in her twenties, and I knew that for everyone’s safety he had to leave. He refused. But when our pastor pointed out that we had evidence we could take to the police unless he went, he left.

    During our separation I cried out to God to show me how to forgive. I knew I must – if I didn’t it would eat away at me and, more importantly, would hinder my relationship with Jesus. But I didn’t know how to forgive. It was one thing to forgive what my husband had done to me, but our children had also been harmed, and that was so much harder to forgive. And so I began to read everything Jesus had to say on the topic of forgiveness.

    And I noticed something – Jesus talked about forgiveness a number of times. But there was only one place where He defined what he meant by it, and that was in Matthew chapter 18, where He defined it as cancelling a debt. Once I realised that, I knew what I had to do. So I took a blank piece of paper and on it I wrote down everything my husband owed me, from the marriage vows he had made, and from what the Bible instructs Christian husbands to do:

    • He owes it to me to love me.
    • He owes it to me to honour me.
    • He owes it to me to cherish me.
    • He owes it to me to forsake all others.
    • He owes it to me to be faithful to me alone as long as we both shall live.
    • He owes it to me to love me as Christ loved the Church.
    • He owes it to me to wash me with the water of his words.
    • He owes it to me to lay down his life for me.
    • He owes it to me to live with me as heirs together of the grace of life.
    • He owes it to me not to provoke our children.

    And so on, until I had listed everything that came to mind. And then, at the bottom of the page, I wrote, “Lord Jesus, with your help I am cancelling this debt and regarding it henceforth as paid in full.” And I signed and dated it, just as if it were a legal document.

    At once I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from me. I told no one what I had done, but folded the paper and secreted it in my prayer journal. The next day, I met up with my husband, who up to that point had shown no remorse or repentance for his conduct. He handed me a large bouquet of flowers and said, “I owe you an apology. I’ve been completely out of order.” I was staggered beyond words. It was as if my forgiveness, given in the secret of my own heart and witnessed only by God, had unblocked a spiritual channel and set him free to begin to repent.

    I wish that was the end of the story. After six months he moved back home, and gradually the pattern of unfaithfulness, lying and deceit crept back in. Eventually the abuse became so damaging I knew I had to get myself and my youngest child, who was still living at home, out and into a place of safety. This time there was no going back and we were divorced after 31 years of marriage.

    Two years later he was taken ill and died quite suddenly, but I was able to sit at his bedside just before he died and assure him that the past was all forgiven and he had nothing more to reproach himself with. In the final hours of his life I witnessed him reach a place of peace with God. I know that if God had not shown me how to go about forgiving, my subsequent life would have been blighted by bitterness. Instead I am enjoying a freedom I never knew when I was married.

    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.

  • The Gift of Forgiveness

    Will you – can you – forgive?

    That is the question we explore in our new series, Forgiveness Fridays. And it’s fitting to kick off the series honoring the person who first sparked my interest in writing about forgiveness, Jill Saward. Dubbed for years as the “Ealing vicarage rape victim,” she was a tireless campaigner for those affected by sexual violence. She died yesterday following a stroke, only 51 years old.

    Jill Saward with her father, Revd Michael Saward

    What caught my eye back in 2006 was an article online about Jill and forgiveness, for she forgave her attackers. When one of them, who hadn’t had any part of the rape, but hadn’t tried to stop it either, was released from jail, he wanted to meet her. He sought forgiveness. And she forgave him, to the disbelief of many. As she said,

    “It’s not a question of whether you can or can’t forgive. It’s a question of whether you will or won’t.

    “Of course, sometimes I thought it might be quite nice to be full of hatred and revenge. But I think it creates a barrier and you’re the one who gets damaged in the end. So, although it makes you vulnerable, forgiving is actually a release. I don’t think I’d be here today without my Christian faith. That’s what got me through.”

    We may not – I hope not – have to forgive someone for such a life-changing crime, but we all have to forgive people who have wronged us. Will we hold onto, and even nurse our bitterness? Or will we let it go, with the help of God, and embrace the freedom and joy God gives upon its release?

    My new book for Lent, The Living Cross, looks at this question in a series of daily Bible readings. You can buy a copy through me, at good Christian bookshops in the UK, or online at Eden, or of course through Amazon. In the States it is only available through Amazon.