Letting Go

I think I'm starting to get a little bit about this forgiveness stuff. I have been thinking a lot about Jesus. I have been mulling His last hours in my mind like savoring a fine wine on my tongue. It has really made me ponder what is really important.

"Forgive them, Father. They don't get it... They don't know the consequences of their actions...."

WOW!!! Is it just like Jesus to do something so spectacular? So selfless and so powerful just when He looked so powerless? He lets it go… He wont let the overwhelming burden thrust upon Him bring him down.

Jesus is amazing. Oh, to shine in my darkest hour the way Jesus did.

And Stephen. A man I can identify with. Young and charismatic, he was the hope of the emerging church. And again, as the legalistic scholars took up stones and hurled them, crushing him, breaking his bones, what was his reaction? He prayed that God not judge them for these actions.

As the shadow of death crept in, Stephen was not focused on his own mortality… his own sad demise. He was focused on Jesus and the cross. There, at the scene of his own death, he shone like the son. He radiated with the light of forgiveness.

He didn’t cry out for God to save him… or for angels to swoop in. He prayed for his enemies.

Oh to find that peace and that grace. Oh to see Jesus that clearly now.

I read an article about a nun that was killed by angry Muslims a few weeks ago.

Sister Leonella, an Italian nun that had dedicated her entire life to helping poor and disadvantaged of East Africa, found herself in the focus of racial hatred in the form of two Somali gunmen. Muslim extremists across the globe have been enraged over remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI linking Islam and violence.



Shot by the two men, she was taken to the local hospital where she was overheard saying a final message for the assailants and for the world. "I forgive, I forgive," she whispered in her native Italian just before she died.

Again I see a level of forgiveness that makes me speechless. She reflected the glory of Christ on the cross by her amazing act of forgiveness. Selfless forgiveness.

I look at my own heart. I don't see that reflection of the son yet. I see anger. I see bitterness. I have held on to the bad things that have happened to me. And who is it hurting? Not my enemy? No. It is dragging me down. It is making my heart hard. I need to let it go... not for them. But I need to forgive for me. So I may be set free. So I may be healed.

This isn't going to be easy. But I am starting the process. I am giving up the grip I have on this pain and this anguish, this feeling of loss. I am getting up. I am giving it up to that man on the cross. He rescued me. He forgave me of my sins. He has been building a better me.... now He has a bigger challenge. Help me to let it go.