I had a chance to visit with some of my family recently. We are all getting older. As I thought about it, I couldn’t help but think about the past. When I first met my in-laws, I was scared and unsure of myself and they didn’t know what to think about me, it took some time before we really got to know each other. Now, I feel like they are more my family than many of my blood relatives. When I think back to the person I was when I first met them, I realize that I am not the same person in mind, body, or spirit.
In some ways, it feels so strange because that person was me. Yet she’s gone in some very significant ways. I’d like to believe that something of her still exists inside of me. And then, as I write this, I realize that is how I can forgive. That is why God can see me at all times of my life.
What I mean is that if we never changed, then holding on to hurt and anger would make sense, but we do change. My best example is my own mother. She has done horrible things to me all my life. She will never admit it and she will never say she is sorry for it. However, the person who did all those things, who tried to control and manipulate me can’t do that anymore. I’m free of her. I have let go of the pain and anger and know how to do it because I changed. In these last years of her life, I can forgive because she isn’t that person anymore. I can’t look at this old woman and be angry for how she treated me most of my life because that doesn’t count for all her life. That doesn’t define her life and it doesn’t define who she is. All I can do is understand that she is a child of God and He commands that I see her for all that she is and love her because of all that she is not hate her for the mistakes she made.
Every single one of us will make mistakes. Every single one of us will hurt other people and anger them. The good we do will be evil to someone else. It is inevitable in a world with billions of people on it. God asks that we see each other for all that we are and all that that we can be. He doesn’t want us to define each other by the mistakes we make, but by who we are. We are children of God. We are beings of love. We are constantly changing. I will open my heart to forgiveness, not because my brothers and sisters in Christ deserve it, but because I would want to be treat that way. I would want others to recognize that throughout my life I tried, I grew, I changed, and I got better even through I constantly struggled, stumbled, and fell. Because I kept getting back up again and again because I have faith.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
