Written by Katie ~
With it being the new year we tend to look back over the last year and reflect on things we did, places we visited, etc. Well, when I look back I also like to think, “What did God teach me in 2018?”
Last year the word would be “Forgiveness”. God taught me to forgive.
I started 2018 with some major turmoil in my life. While Satan wanted me to become bitter and be filled with anger and hatred, God showed me how to love and show mercy and grace, just as He has done to me time and time again. With listening to God I believe the relationship is now growing stronger than it ever has.
While I would like to think “Okay, God, I learned the lesson” -He showed me otherwise. He allowed my father in his passing to teach me one more lesson on forgiveness.
I watched my Dad in his weakest moments do some of the strongest things he had ever done and that was forgive relationships that had been broken and mend them. I still wanted again to be angry and hold the grudges but as I watched my Dad forgive, and forgive big, I thought, “If he can forgive them, how can I not?”
If I’m to be Christ-like then I have to be willing to forgive those who have done me wrong, hurt me, or treated me unfairly. The best example of this is Christ. If He can forgive those, including myself, who wrong Him daily and whose sins hung Him on the cross, then who am I not to forgive someone.
In Colossians 3:13 it says “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
It’s a hard thing to forgive or ask for forgiveness but it must be done in order to grow in Christ.
So thankful God saw fit to forgive me and continues to.
~ Katie