The Miracle of Forgiveness

Coco, my pup, notifies me when it is time to retrieve the day’s mail. One day, after our trip to the mailbox, she watched curiously as I opened a package containing a small, yellowed classic--Lewis Smedes’ book on forgiveness. Its size betrayed its reputation.

Later that evening as Coco and I settled into our favorite reading spot, I expected to garner classic quotes on forgiveness like Dr. Smedes’ famous “To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you.”

But, instead of just familiar adages, I gleaned many unexpected assertions detailing the complexity of forgiveness. Here is one of my favorites: “Ordinary people forgive best if they go at it in bits and pieces, and for a specific act. They bog down if they try to forgive people in the grand manner, because wholesale forgiving is almost always fake. Forgiving anything at all is a minor miracle; forgiving ‘carte blanche’ is silly. Nobody can do it, except God. And the first rule for mere human beings in the forgiving game is to remember that we are not God*.”

Father, thank you for raising brothers and sisters in Christ gifted in thinking through complex spiritual truths. Thank You for creating words and written language for communicating Your thoughts to us and for us to tell others of Your grace for the human heart. May I steward my words respectfully, thoughtfully, and in a way that brings You glory. In the name of the Living Word, Jesus Christ, I pray, amen.  

Linda Lesniewski                           

*Forgive & Forget, Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve, HarperCollins, New York; 1984; Smedes, Lewis.