One of the most beautiful things a person can experience in marriage, relationships, and in life, is forgiveness. When First Corinthians talks about love, it says,
love…always protects, always hopes, always trusts and always perseveres.”
Since this world is full of imperfection and destruction, there is no way to always do these things without the healing power of forgiveness.
Love shouldn’t be all these things only when relationships are going well. First Corinthians states that it should go on always. And that’s what makes forgiveness so beautiful. It is the gateway to always. Without it, there would be no room for protecting the relationship, trusting your spouse, hoping for the best in your marriage and persevering despite trial. None of us are perfect. And when you put two imperfect people together for any length of time, there’s bound to be some inconsistency in the always.
I had a friend growing up whose parents would always make him suffer under a storm of guilt before offering forgiveness. The guilt left him feeling inadequate and unable to maintain relationships for fear of doing something wrong and being forced to feel the full anguish of his actions before being forgiven. Have you ever experienced un-forgiveness? It’s terrible. It makes one feel as though they are an unworthy person, and with that comes the fear of the inability to change, to be who God truly created us to be. And if we can’t change, the “always hopes” goes out the window.
With forgiveness, there’s freedom. That’s why Christ talks about confessing our sins and praying together so that we may experience healing. You don’t have to be a healthcare professional to know that wounds limit us in one capacity or another. The way to heal from emotional wounds inflicted by the ones you love is through forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a new beginning. That’s exactly why Jesus told his disciples that you should forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven. Because we are imperfect people, the need for a new beginning comes more often than we like to admit. Forgiveness is the door to that new beginning, to a new ability to love and to a new ability to always protect, hope, trust and persevere.
