Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Mt 18:22, 23
There are so many scriptures about forgiveness. It’s hard to choose one among them because they are all so pertinent. A few months ago, I was reading “The Forgiveness Fix” by Amy Newmark, which is part of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. The stories included are loaded with ideas about wrongs unjustly committed against others and how those who were wronged found the depth of soul to forgive. Reading the stories made me think about people in my past whom I needed to forgive. Some of them were from long ago and not generally part of my consciousness. However, they were obviously not forgotten since the thought of them dredged up the same old scenarios. There were two in particular from my days studying abroad when I was twenty.
The first one I thought of was a professor I had for French literature. It no longer matters what happened, but the incident has stuck with me and in fact has become a story to relate to my own international students who are studying here in the United States. It had to do with words in French and English that are “false friends.” Both languages have the same word, but they mean something different in each language. Anyway, I decided to look up the professor online since google has so much information. As it turns out, I had no idea at the time that he was a famous expert in literature having written books of his own. He not only taught us, the foreign students, but also taught native students, and it appears that his native students loved him. Finding articles about him online helped me to appreciate him in a different light. It became clear that it was a simple case of my misunderstanding due to the word used, combined with his deep love of great literature. Forgiving him helped me to see that his life had meaning and goodness to a lot of people.
The other person was a little more difficult since it involved the woman who ran the boarding house where I stayed in that country. God gave me the power and grace to forgive her as well. A few months after forgiving her, I was going through some old papers and found her name. I decided to look her up as well. This time, there was not a lot of information, but there was one small note in an old newspaper. It was an obituary. The obituary said that her husband had died suddenly on Christmas Eve in Holland (they may have been Dutch immigrants to the country where I was) seven years before I met her. He was just sixty years old. What perspective that little note gave me! That must have been so difficult for her. The address was the same as the place where I stayed, and so she must have been left with a very large house to run by herself, it being her only source of income. I now believe that she was just heartbroken and bitter without much sympathy left for a naïve twenty year whose American cultural mannerisms she did not understand (and vice versa!).
From these two lessons, I have learned how truly important it is to forgive. We have no idea what has happened in other people’s lives to make them the way they are. We all live in our human condition, with all of the baggage that has happened in our lives. It becomes clear why Jesus said,
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Mt 6:14, 15
We have such a supreme example of one who forgave the impossible. Imagine the pain that Jesus was suffering through, not only physically, but also perhaps emotionally. Was all of his work on earth in vain? Where were his disciples? We know of only one that was present at the crucifixion with his mother. Yet, he trusted God his Father, and found the compassion and strength to think of others and to say:
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Lk 23:34
Apples of Gold 