Forgive, Reconcile, Love, Repeat
I remember when my faith was fresh. It was a time of newness, one when I knew many stories of Christ but my personal experience with Christ was limited. I had just given birth to my third child and I was coming out of a very traumatic postpartum experience. It was during this time that I began to feel an increasing awareness of a tremendous source of pain in my life: my relationship with my mother. She was entering a hard season of her own, seemingly on her own.
My heart ached with her.
It ached for her.
The more I leaned in to help, I realized that my heart ached because of her.
A little backstory: my mother was a single parent. She was a teen mom. I was her only girl; The second born out of three children. Can I just state that growing up was hard? Looking back, the fact that I grew up without knowing that I could have a relationship with God was even harder. We knew church. We knew church sayings. We knew gospel music, yet Jesus wasn’t the foundation of our family. Needless to say, without a true relationship with Him, life under these “less than ideal” circumstances were extremely challenging. One where there was consistent care intermingled with unspoken hurts and unforgiven transgressions that were buried deep beneath the surface of our relationship. We lacked access to biblical tools, therefore the ability, to healthily navigate the challenges of family life with the grace and forgiveness that they so often require.
After having my babies, and still longing for a deeper level of connection with my mother, I was truly hurting. However, in the midst of my pain and with my newfound faith in Jesus, all the biblical talk about newness of life, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love, my faith was awakening to a hope that He could heal and restore my relationship with my mom. For the first time I believed that God could resurrect the dead parts of our story. I deeply desired to start afresh and have a heart-to-heart with my mother. I longed to apologize and ask her forgiveness where I needed to, as well as accept her apologies and extend forgiveness to her where she needed me to. I was ready to not just merely read the words of Jesus, I was moved - overwhelmed - with a desire to be bold and apply the words of Jesus.
Like many stories in life, our initial conversation didn’t go as I hoped it would. However, our relationship eventually did experience healing and restoration. Throughout our relationship, the Lord consistently gave me the grace to continually apply these few principles I will share with you. Although it seems simple, at times, it will not be. We all need the power of God’s Spirit and His enablement to obey what He commands of us. These steps are not a “how to” but I hope that they serve as encouragement towards the desired attitudes of the heart that can grow out of being in Christ. As I grew in the Lord as His disciple, His life and teachings - His very spirit - ministered to the offenses that were buried there and taught me how to heal with Him and how to forgive be reconciled to and love others.
Choose to forgive. As disciples of Christ, we must embrace that not only is forgiveness a choice, but it is also a command. We are completely and totally forgiven by God and as His representatives, we are to extend the forgiveness of God towards others, in word and in deed. This can be challenging. This can seem flat out impossible. Yet, God’s grace is sufficient. While the individual you could be prompted to forgive may not realize their need for forgiveness, nor be told that you forgive them because of that, forgiving them should always be a matter between you and God.
Pursue reconciliation. Once we have settled in our hearts and minds to choose obedience to Christ’s commands to forgive, we must then move to reconcile. God actually desires that before we offer our gifts to Him, that we make matters right with others. In other words we are to either initiate or be willing to respond to another’s initiation to make things right between us after a transgression. This brings glory to God. If you’re still not convinced, the Scriptures teach us that we are ministers of reconciliation. There must be an exchange, an adjustment, to make things right. As in all things pertaining to faith, our model for this is Jesus. Through and by Jesus’ sacrificial atonement, He restored to us the divine favor of God. He made our relationship with the Father right again. Remember, even if the other person isn’t interested in reconciliation, you can still do what glorifies God and trust Him with the rest.
Commit - and recommit - to unconditional love. Jesus said that as His disciples, it is His will that we would be known by our love for one another. We can have all the gifts, roles, responsibilities, titles, and everything else in this world, but if we lack love, the Scriptures tell us that we’re not actually helping, benefitting, or doing good to others. The Scriptures actually say that we are a sounding gong. This is very convicting and it serves as an encouragement to allow love to be our motivating factor in anything we do for and to others. Whether they love us in return, is no longer our concern and when we rely on God’s strength to obey the call to love others, we can focus on Jesus and do just that. In doing so, our unmet expectations of others, lose their power over us, and we can love selflessly.
When we resolve to forgive, reconcile, love, and repeat this as much as necessary, we are walking in the light. When we rely on the Spirit of God to do our part in following the model of Christ and we are actively participating in being transformed into His image, we are living out our purpose. Living out our purpose in Christ is always good, for in it we glorify God.
