Many thanks to my friend and sister in Christ Ines Higgins for sharing this deeply moving and personal testimony. If you’d like to hear more from Ines, you can subscribe to her podcast, Intentional Purposeful Living With Ines. just search in your favourite podcasts app, or:
Click here
Pretty much since I have been a Christian, I thought I’d believed in forgiveness. I would say amen every time someone would say that it is important to forgive. I would pray for people to forgive others and I would even forgive others for the little things they did to annoy me, like if someone stepped in my way when I make my way through town with my cane or if someone steps before me in a queue. But what about the big things?
For years, I had actually only nodded mental ascent to forgiveness when it came to big things like people who have let us down. I would claim that I had forgiven them, and in my next breath I would speak very negatively about them again. I would justify it by saying things such as ‘I feel better praying for them from a distance; why should I contact them?’
this was especially true when it came to my mother. For years, my sweet husband, who is a true family man – someone who always believed in reconciliation – encouraged me to make contact. I said that it would be safer for all parties if I did not speak to them but pray from a distance.
Though this does sound incredibly pious, this is not the type of forgiveness Jesus calls us to. He says to forgive your brother 7 times 70; even if he comes to you over and over, repenting of the same thing, we need to forgive. And what if people do not repent? Do I just not forgive? Well, if Jesus had waited for us to repent, how would we do right now?
The truth is, if Jesus had waited for us to repent first, we would not be where we are right now. So it is with forgiving others. Jesus says in Matthew 5:9: ““Blessed [spiritually calm with life (joy in God’s favour] are the makers and maintainers of peace, for they will [express His character and] be called the sons of God.” (The Amplified Version).
Before Christmas, someone preaching in my church suggested that we may have to be the first to come to the table and apologise and make peace. God spoke to me very powerfully, and I went to the front and asked for prayer for strength to do this very thing. But not only did I ask for prayer; I went ahead and sent my mother, who I had much strife with due to things I was harbouring from the past, an email apologising for my lack of contact. You see, I am German, and my mother, along with the rest of my family, still lives in Germany. A lot of things happened over the years that did hurt me and caused me to harbour resentment towards her. In my email where I apologised, I acknowledged that I knew she did not mean to hurt me, but to shake me up with the remarks she had made; you see, one cannot give away what one does not have, and my mother did not grow up with a lot of love in her life, so how can I expect her to give away love and encouraging words?
My email was received kindly and we have never had a better relationship.
I just want you to know that I have promised Alex this devotional/testimony for ages, but I am relieved I did not deliver until now, because had I done this, you would not have received the last update which has just happened today (Saturday, 22 February 2020).
When I recently found out I was to start a job that is over double the hours of what I am currently doing, as well as obviously more pay, I chose to honour my mum by deciding she would be the first I would tell the news, even before my husband who is, apart from Jesus himself, the most important person in my life. She responded that she was glad for me and wished for the “luck” of receiving paid employment herself soon. As soon as I saw her response, I prayed for her to receive a new job straight away.
Well, as I told her today the developments, how I have to have a week off between contracts, she informed me that she is starting her new role herself, even before I start mine.
in closing, I want to make a few remarks. Firstly, remember, there is a commandment in the Old Testament that demands for you to honour your father and mother that it would go well with you and that you would live long on the earth. Secondly, remember that Jesus did not come to abolish, but to fulfil the law. Finally, when you honour and pray for your family, Jesus will honour your prayers, so please do not EVER Give up on praying for those who do not know Jesus yet in your family. My mother does not know Jesus yet but even me praying for a job, and God answering her prayers, may well have planted a seed in her heart. And God will cause this seed to flourish.
Living beyond limitations!