forgiving

This blog has been a long time coming. I don’t usually post things so deep in my heart – but God’s been doing some beautiful things in me and it deserves to be shared. even now as i prepare to hit "publish post" i'm incredibly tentative about this one. i'll just take a deep breath...here goes…

2009 was a rough year for me, and for my family. In Feb 2009 My younger sister’s husband left her out of the blue and filed for a divorce. This upheaval in my sister’s life happened to coincide exactly with when I moved back from Bombay to the US. Oh how the fingerprints of God were clear…I was available. I didn’t have anything I needed to do, or anyplace that I needed to be. So I moved in with my sister and walked with her through some dark days. My heart breaking with her. Grieving with her. Living together. I’m so thankful for the months that I was able to spend with Angela. There were hard dark moments – that is for sure…but there were also hilarious moments. Times when we laughed. When we played. Such a treasure to know my sister in ways that I never had before.

But I was also very angry. Angry at zack. Angry at the way he betrayed my sister. Angry at the way his selfishness hurt our family. Angry at his irresponsibility. At times angry at how his decisions created instability in my life. Angry. Very angry at zack. I have this very clear memory of walking my sister’s dog and talking with my best friend on the phone and crying and declaring over and over how much I hated zack. And while I don’t think that anger was unhealthy at the time – it is the sort of thing that I knew shouldn’t take up residence in my heart.

Fast-forward to this fall.

With the passage of time, and the slow healing and grace of the Lord at work in all our hearts our family continued picking up the pieces. The Lord was busy at work restoring our family. Restoring my sister. My heart would celebrate the ways God’s grace was evident in our lives.

I listened to some sermons on forgiveness – and the Lord began working in my heart. I knew I needed to forgive zack. I started talking with my small group about how I needed to release that anger and hatred in my heart. Week after week I’d talk about it. The Lord was working in me. Drawing me. I wanted to forgive. I wanted to “release zack” (and I know in that really there is also a deep element of releasing my own heart in releasing zack). But I couldn’t see how. It was like there was this wall and I couldn’t get through it.

In January right before I left for india my friend merilee and I were praying together – and in that moment, for the first time I was able to thank the Lord for all of 2009. for the joys and the hard parts. For the instability. For the ways He was at work in the midst of brokenness. For his grace and mercy in the middle of a situation that I know also broke His heart. It was unexpected. It was a huge step in my heart that I didn’t fully recognize at the time.

Then, in mid-february I prayed for zack for the first time in a long long time…it was like this overflow of my heart – grief for him…sadness for him for the choices he made (as opposed to sadness for me, my family and angela for the choices he made). And my heart really wants zack to be well and whole. I hadn’t felt that for him in a long time. I felt a lot of anger and judgment…but not compassion for him.

Freedom is coming to my soul and my heart in ways that I talked about a lot this past year – but just wasn’t able to feel/embrace/receive. And I knew that I wanted this season of language school to be one of rest and restoration – but still…this freedom, this movement of God in my heart has taken me by surprise…a really wonderful surprise – like I didn’t really think it would ever come.

He is faithful.

Amen.