I had a "falling out" with the woman who redesigned the website for my business. She is the same person who designed the website for my church and she was referred to me by my Pastor.
In addition to redesigning the website, she became the new host for our site. We had multiple problems with the service and those problems came to a head last week with a flurry of emails. It ended with her shutting my site and email down and me scrambling to find someone to quickly redesign my site and set up new email accounts.
I won’t provide all the details but I was so upset with the woman that I put a big red X over her in my mind. I never wanted to see or speak to her again and I had every intention of filing a lawsuit against her.
We had a women’s conference at my church on Saturday and unbeknownst to me, she was invited. When she arrived, we both looked surprised, offered nervous smiles and proceeded to avoid further eye or physical contact. I determined in my mind that I would just pretend that she did not exist.
The conference program started with praise and worship. I stood in the back of the room enjoying the opportunity to praise God. Hands lifted, I joined in the singing when the overwhelming sense of conviction began to set in. It was as if God was saying, “Stop it right now. I’m not even trying to hear you until you reconcile with your sister.” I tried to ignore God for a minute but God can be very persistent. He simply would not allow it and I knew that all the singing in the world would not give me any peace.
I went over to her, whispered in her ear and asked her if she would come outside with me. She gave me the "look of death" and said, “No”. I asked her again and asked that she trust me. She relented.
We went outside and I just gave her a hug and she started to cry. We started to cry. I apologized and it was if a giant weight lifted. God was pleased. Honestly, I don’t remember if she apologized to me too. It didn’t even matter at that point. I just knew that I needed to apologize. That’s all it took – all was well.
God has been dealing with me on the issue of forgiveness since my divorce in 2002. My ex-husband has never apologized to me for anything he did during our marriage. He has never acknowledged any wrongdoing. As much as I have tried to forgive this man – I know in my heart that I haven’t. I can’t seem to forgive him because he has never apologized. Instead all I want is to be able to witness it when God “gets him” for all he did to me and my children.
I know that Scripture tells us to forgive – period. We are not to forgive only if someone asks for forgiveness. We are simply to forgive, just as God forgives us. (Thank you Lord.)
What happened on Saturday shows me that it is in me to forgive. I just need to figure out how to use Saturday’s experience as a precursor to offering unconditional forgiveness to anyone and everyone – even my ex.
Pray for me. . .
Posts
