Today in church John Mark talked about the passage from Matthew 5: 38-48. It's about loving your enemy, forgiving them, and praying for those who persecute you. It's filled with creative ways to bring about healing and change not only in your personal life but in the life or lives of those who you act kindly to even though you really don't want to. As a church goer and christian on a good amount of years, I've heard this before and thought "yeah I know, I need to be nice to people I don't like...cool." It hadn't ever hit me the way it did today.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I knew exactly why. In the past year and a half I met someone who I thought was going to be a good long time friend and it turned out to be the exact opposite. This person tried and succeeded at splitting apart a friendship between me and another guy and then even attempted at ruining my now husband and I's relationship. Long story short, through the course of time, great pain was caused to not only myself but to Andrew as well. It was like having a hot poker driven through my heart when I learned the truth about this person and all the things that they had told me but ended up being lies. Instantly I started conjuring up the utmost disrespectful and spiteful things to say and do. I wanted to call them and just start spewing venomous words to them, I wanted to make them not only realize the pain they cause be, but do it unto them as well. Each time I thought of them a surge of fierce anger would swell inside me and turn me into this angry, contentious woman, someone that I'm not and did not want to turn into.
For months one end I let this brew in my heart, festering and putrefying all sweetness and love. I would say "oh I forgive them, everything is okay." but inside it was not true. I hadn't forgiven them, nor had I forgot. I remembered every single stabbing word they said to me and it ate away at me. I smiled less, laughed less, loved less and slowly but surely moved away from the Lord. I did so because I knew exactly what He would tell me should I pray or read His word "Olivia, you need to forgive. Forgive and let go, don't keep thinking about it, because then you give it power, power over you. Love them the way that I do for I created you both in my image and love you the same."
Today, as John Mark spoke, those words came into my head and I couldn't help but cry bitter sweet tears. How could God love them the same?!? Did He not see how much pain and sorrow this person had caused me? He did see it and knew it had happened but, as for everything in our lives, there is a purpose, and that purpose was to teach me how to forgive someone of the most awful things I have ever personally experienced. To teach me how to love the way that He loves.
So at the end of the sermon, we got communion and circled up in groups of 3-4 and prayed for those who persecute(d) us. I soooo did NOT want to pray for this person but I did. Then after church, on the drive home (I was by myself), I cried to God to help me truly forgive this person. I confessed how hard it was and that I didn't want to, I asked for forgiveness for all the hatred I had harbored toward them and then, before I knew it I said, "Lord I forgive them! I forgive them with all my heart and everything that is within me! Teach me to love them the way you do, see them the way you do. I don't want to think of them like I have been. I let it go and forgive them."
I can not explain the way I feel now, but it's as if I'm 20 pounds lighter. I feel joyful and relieved, free from the captivity of a spirit of vengefulness and loathing.
Thank you Jesus.
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