Week 5, Day 35 - Forgive & Forget?

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."  Jeremiah 31:34

REFLECT

It was twelve months since the transgression occurred. The husband told his wife immediately after that business trip - that fateful trip - about what had happened between himself and his co-worker in the hotel. The thing he thought would never happen.

They were both stunned after his confession. The wife, wounded to the core. The husband, filled with remorse. They sought out their pastor the week that followed, because to them this marriage was too good to let one moment ruin it all. Still, the wife said she needed time.

Twelve months passed. They came back to see their pastor. For all the devastating damage the husband's transgression had caused, they generally felt they were doing far better than they every thought possible. This was a wake-up call. Neither of them was going to take for granted things they had before. They were humbled.

The wife knew she had forgiven her husband. Her anger ebbed and flowed, but it was lessening. There was one thing deeply troubling her, however. She had not forgotten. Well meaning friends told her that the rule is "forgive and forget," and if you haven't forgotten, then you haven't actually forgiven.

But is that notion really true? Does forgiveness coincide with amnesia? The reality is when devastating things happen in our lives they become part of our personal histories. We can recollect them from time to time. That's probably a good thing because we can learn from them. However the intense feelings first experienced subside when forgiveness is extended and received. When we allow God's Holy Spirit into our painful events, extend forgiveness or receive forgiveness, the historical memory is just that, history. However, a memory savored and mulled over and over again without forgiveness extended becomes enslavement. The intense feelings can follow us years later when the event is brought to our consciousness. Un-forgiveness creates toxic waste inside where insidious poison works its way through our bodies and minds ending in bitterness and resentment.

Nobody can live a healthy life with resentment swirling in the front of their minds all the time. History is history, and it can't be rewritten. As 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter," puts it: "Love keeps no record of wrongs." This is what God does. He marks the history, but then settles the accounts: "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

MAKE IT REAL

On a piece of paper write down two different incidents where people hurt you badly; then ask yourself whether you've released those situations into the hands of God and his grace and justice. Write on the backside: "Love keeps no record of wrongs," and tear up the paper into the smallest pieces you can and throw them away.

Week 6 - Healing