Forgiving the Unforgivable

by

Have you for­giv­en a per­son that hurts you so much that you promised to your­self you won’t for­give him or her  till your very  last breath? If yes, that was awe­some, if not, I hope and pray that the moment you are read­ing this, you would re-think to rec­on­cile with this per­son soon.

Life seems so mys­te­ri­ous. There are things that are meant to hap­pen but we didn’t expect it in the first place.

Life has many sur­pris­es. One day we woke up grate­ful, one day were not. One day, we feel sat­is­fied and ful­filled, the next day were not. There­fore I con­clude that life is unpre­dictable.

I remem­ber that last time I joined a min­istry in our church, a friend just grabbed me and put me out there unwill­ing­ly, yet I faith­ful­ly ded­i­cat­ed myself in ser­vice of oth­ers. Who would have thought that click­ing slides for music and preach­ing would be fun?  yet chal­leng­ing as you have to deal with the lit­tle things in life.

2 years lat­er, I decid­ed to step out of my com­fort zone. I joined the kid’s church as a vol­un­teer teacher, not know­ing­ly that this place is for the extro­vert and teach­ers alike. I was sur­prised that I have to dance with the kids, talk to them and teach them, but any­way, it didn’t both­er me. I grow as a per­son vol­un­teer­ing to this min­istry with a mis­sion to shape the future of the next gen­er­a­tion that will walk in integri­ty and faith in God. And just this year, I was assigned to become a preach­er for kids of ages 7 to 9 every week, and actu­al­ly, this is my third week.

I still have to learn a lot, which I want to share it with you tonight.

Ear­li­er, after preach­ing to the kids, there was a fight between two kids hap­pened. A co-teacher noticed it and called out our atten­tion. I am not lit­er­al­ly a teacher by pro­fes­sion so I didn’t know how to con­front and at the same time restore the kids. At the back of my head, what I am going to do? I am help­less.

(C) Maisle Lo

© Maisle Lo

Thank­ful­ly, anoth­er teacher came up. I watched her how he han­dled the sit­u­a­tion and I learned some­thing new! But I was amazed on the kid’s response because the one who use his fist cried out emo­tion­al­ly defend­ing his cause, but the oth­er one sim­ply ini­ti­at­ed peace and even offered his hand to him as a ges­ture of for­give­ness. And that teach­es me two things:

1. For­giv­ing is not com­pli­cat­ed.

Some­times, as adults, we make things com­pli­cat­ed. I noticed that kids have no scale in terms of offense, whether it could be big or lit­tle pet­ty things,  that doesn’t mat­ter when it comes to for­giv­ing an offense.

But we as an adult aren’t the same, because of our expe­ri­ences, fear start­ed to crip­ple us every time we want to stand from our fail­ures. We make our lives com­pli­cat­ed.

For­giv­ing is easy but accept­ing is not. And I think that’s one of  the rea­sons why most of us can­not for­give. If we only can accept the things the way it is, for­giv­ing would not be a prob­lem.

2. For­giv­ing is a divine act.

We can­not for­give when we are not for­giv­en. 

That’s one of the things I’ve learned from read­ing the Bible. To for­give is a divine act because it was first ini­ti­at­ed by God. By under­stand­ing this, we can for­give the peo­ple that have offend­ed or have hurt us.

Some peo­ple says: “His­to­ry repeats itself.” While this may be true in some con­text, but I may say, His­to­ry can nev­er repeat itself once we decid­ed to for­give and moved on. We can remem­ber what hap­pened in World War 2 about the Ger­many-Israel Holo­causts. After Adolf Hitler died, Jews did not even con­sid­er Ger­many as an ene­my after all the dam­ages they have done.

Going back, the kid who ini­ti­at­ed the hand­shake, did a great job. He did not think twice, he just offered his hand with­out retal­i­at­ing or defend­ing him­self. His par­ents must be proud of him.  I nev­er know if he under­stands what for­give­ness is already at his young age, but I’m pret­ty sure, his par­ents effec­tive­ly demon­strat­ing it at home.

Jesus ini­ti­at­ed the act of for­give­ness of our sins by will­ful­ly sub­mit­ting to the will of God by dying on the cross, that can serve as a reminder for us when­ev­er we have the hard time to for­give.

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and for­give any­one who offends you. Remem­ber, the Lord for­gave you, so you must for­give oth­ers. — Colos­sians 3:13 NLT