The question I posed in a small group was deceptively simple.
"When is a time someone forgave you, or you forgave someone else?"
For people who routinely recite the Lord's prayer, this is near the top of the wish list. Yet how often do we notice when it
happens?
My question was an invitation to offer color and scent to an exchange that needs to come down off the pedestal. Being theoretical forgivers will not get us closer to our goal.
After a pause that included furrowed eyebrows, some of us spoke. My own story involved a detour, and could have easily have been missed if I did a mind search of the words "I'm sorry." No one admitted that they were. But in God's artful way, I felt called
to serve someone that I had been holding hostage to those words. They needed help and I could give it. An apology or lack of it was irrelevant.
It turns out that the work of showing up is less arduous than the tiresome burden of a grudge.
When John and I were engaged we wrote a song called One Book Between Them. There are five verses..... One Book, One Child, One Prayer, One Life and One Lord. The fourth verse echoes to me, how
forgiveness has become the lubrication for two people who are occasionally ornery.
One life between them to bring them together.
One life between them to bring them together.
Two hearts holding one life. Together as husband and wife.
New ways of living, forgiving, love opens the way, living, living one life.
