FORGIVENESS

     During these past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness. Last fall, I shared my story with you all about how I was dismissed from my previous church almost 6 years ago. For quite some time, I have been in prayer asking God to help me to forgive those who hurt me from my previous church. To sit here and tell you it has been easy would be a lie. God has directed me to not only pray for forgiveness for them, but to pray for them. Boy, that has been hard. But, I have been doing it.
     We have all had to forgive at least once, twice or maybe one hundred times in our lifetime. I remember being a kid, getting picked on by other kids, even one kid punched me in the face. I remember thinking about ways to get even with them. Yet...I could never get even. However, I will admit that I did hold a grudge for many years against these kids. some of them were even in my neighborhood. If you think about it, holding a grudge does not help you in any way, shape or form. It plays with your head, affects you physically and is a total waste of time. The same goes when we have un-forgiveness. It plays in our heads majorly, it does affect us physically and what I have noticed in the past 6years is simple...it has been a waste of time.
           On October 2, 2006, our world was taught a valuable lesson on forgiveness. Five innocent lives were taken because of a schoolhouse shooting that occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, PA. The Gunman was Charles Carl Roberts. He shot eight out of ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse. The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the Amish community's response was widely discussed in the national media for many months. Even years after that horrible incident, we are still in awe of how the Amish community had a heart of forgiveness.
     Another lesson on forgiveness took place well over two thousand years ago. Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, in order for our sins to be forgiven was nailed to a cross made out of wood. Even before they nailed his body to the cross, Jesus was whipped, slapped, beaten, they pulled on his beard and placed a crown of thorns on his head. As Jesus was on the cross experiencing excruciating pain from the nails in his hands and feet, Jesus cries out, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." If Jesus can forgive, then surely I can.
     Mark 11:25 says - And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.