Sometimes growth is as simple as defining what I am really mad at.
I know a teenager who is refusing to forgive someone right now.
They are of accountability age.
And they refuse, knowing they cannot be made to do so.
It is an internal work of the heart that involves mandatory participation of the will.
No, they say. I am not ready.
And it makes me SO mad!
How can a tree turn from the sun? How can water refuse its movement? How can air resist the wind?
I realize I perceive the infraction as small. Therefore I do not legitimize the need for a grudge to be held.
I have had to forgive far larger, and what the teen refuses to forgive seems petty to me.
But surely it is not petty to them.
And I realize the demand in my heart-
if I have to forgive what is impossible to forgive, then everyone around me should do the same!
Because if I have to forgive and everyone else does not, that doesn’t seem fair.
And lo, I have just stepped into judgment of another, the very thing I hoped to avoid by doing my own forgiveness.
Is my forgiveness then unconditional?
If others around me do not forgive, if they consciously choose to not forgive, will I still?
And I realize, this is the question of a laid down life.
This is the question my savior faced on a larger scale.
I am in awe again, of the work of the cross.
I am in awe again of his mercy.