Forgiveness Is Possible

Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
–Luke 11:4

Dr. Chuck Lynch once described a counseling patient named Amber. When she was a child, her grandfather was her best friend. He also sexually abused her. When her grandfather hurt her, she blamed God. When her grandfather died, she blamed God for that too. She dealt with rage and struggled to have good relationships even into adulthood.

After Amber came to understand that it was possible to forgive her deceased grandfather, she wrote him a letter. She began, “Dear Grandpa, I am writing this letter to share with you a few changes that have taken place in my life. But first of all I want to tell you thanks for all that you have done for me. . . . But I am having trouble in the area of the things you did to me when I was a little girl. . . . To help me move on in my healing, I want to give you a gift, the most special gift I could give to you. That gift, Grandpa, is forgiveness.”

Then Amber listed the things she wanted to forgive her grandfather for–all the ways he had hurt her physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She described the ways his abuse had shaped her life even years after his death. She concluded, “Grandpa, now that I have completed this part of the journey and transferred you over to the Lord through forgiveness, I want to make a promise in my heart that I will never bring this up against you again. . . . Now that I feel better about myself and can accept what happened to me, I can say I know what it means to love you through the eyes of the Lord. Amber.”

As you read Amber’s words, God may have brought to your mind somebody who has hurt you deeply, whether through abuse or another kind of wrong. And the person who hurt you may be unaware of what they did to you–or, worse, they may not care. Perhaps you have lost touch with that person or perhaps they’re gone forever.

You don’t have to be your offender’s prisoner any longer. God wants you to be free, and the way to experience that freedom from the wounds of the past is through unconditional forgiveness. Unconditional forgiveness is biblical, it is practical, it is beneficial, and most of all, it is possible.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Forgiving Sorry People Who Aren’t Sorry,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2015.

Chuck Lynch, I Should Forgive, But. . . (Word, 1998), 95–99.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.