BUT The Lord is anxious to show us that HE cares deeply
about our happiness and wants to heal our wounded
hearts, to show us that He was there all the time in our
tragedies and traumas – indeed collected all the tears
that He and we have shed –and to set us free from the
roadblocks, to be free from the inside locks and chains
that trip us up. His promise is that His arm is never too
short that it cannot heal and that He wants us to flourish
and bear fruit even into old age. (Isa 59:1; Ps 92:14)
The key lies in our response to our pain and to
the difficult people and events in our lives. That’s
what Mandela modelled. His intense personal
suffering became the vehicle for his transformation
because of the choices he made in response!
When we ask His forgiveness and lay these
judgements and vows and lies at His feet at the
cross, He promises to forgive us and start afresh to
transform our situations into places of love and
reconciliation. We too, like Mandela, can be like Jesus.
John 17: 20- 23
20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for
those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you
are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so
that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that
they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and
you in me—so that they may be brought to complete
unity. Then the world will know that you sent me
and have loved them even as you have loved me.
His response was to forgive his enemies and to
work for reconciliation, influencing not only his
people but all the people all over the world, no Written by Pauline Guthrie.
matter what their colour or creed. His response
could have been very different because he had
27
years of hard labour in which to choose revenge!
So we can ask God by His Holy Spirit to show us the
origins of our hurt. Together we can acknowledge the
hurts and trauma while He tends to the pain. Then
He gently asks us to look at our responses - to forgive
others if we have judged them, ask forgiveness for
doing so, forgive ourselves and even ‘forgive’ God!
AT times when the hurt has been great, and the pain
lifelong, it is very hard to forgive; but God works with
the first step of our willingness and completes the
process for us when we take that first step and say I am
willing (to be made willing!) to forgive… help me Lord.
SO we take the first step in being willing to
forgive those who have hurt us or become
our enemies. Sometimes we have to decide to
forgive ourselves, often the hardest thing to do!
The Lord also asks us to bring to the cross those
vows we might have made about ourselves or
others, the lies we have believed about ourselves
because others have put us down or denied us or
our talents, or not acknowledged or met our needs.
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