To Whom Do I Owe Forgiveness?
My brain keeps coming back to the same topic when I consider what to write about in my article on forgiveness.
For six months we cared for two toddlers through the Safe Family program. We were asked to adopt them a few months into caring for them and we agreed. Several months after agreeing to adopt them, their father decided he wanted to have some custody of the girls. So, the girls were ripped from our home and put back into the care of their mother, who had asked us to adopt them. After all this, their father has seen them four days out of the last month and a half.
So it’s to their father that I owe forgiveness.
If I think of it from the perspective of the girls, I cannot get there, to forgiveness. I cannot push my heart that far up the forgiveness hill. The journey is too far and my heart too heavy.
But, if I think of their father as an individual, a human struggling in this world, it’s more possible to find forgiveness.
I too am a struggling human in this broken world. I make all kinds of rash choices. I have made plenty of messes for myself and others to deal with. I cut people down. I’m short with my kids and husband. I am selfish and want what I want regardless of how it affects others. When I finally turn my head to look fully in the mirror, I see a lot of mistakes and poor choices and sin.
Thankfully, the Lord can wipe that away and replace what I see in the mirror with His image. Pure beauty and love and truth.
Thankfully I don’t have to push my heart into forgiveness. All I have to do is open my hand to find the gift of forgiveness already inside my fist.
And so, I can offer forgiveness to their father. He is a human, struggling just like me.
Lindsey Ungs
Connection & Communication Architect
