Categories: forty-blogs-of-lent
Tags: Accident, Cycling, Pain, Christianity, Jesus
Date: 05 March 2012 23:29:58
"If I was at a party at your house, and had a stroke, and as a result fell, spilled red wine all over the table linens, broke the crystal, and generally disrupted the party with the arrival of the paramedics and all that, you should excuse all of that, and forgive none of it. There is nothing there to forgive. "If, on the other hand, I was angry with you, and threw my glass of wine at you, spilling red wine all over the table linens, breaking the crystal, and generally disrupting the party with the arrival of the police and all that, you should forgive all that, and excuse none of it."That was written by Josephine on the forum Ship of Fools. There is a problem with the way some people talk about forgiveness. They want the clock to be wound back so that it is as if nothing happened. They are not wanting to be forgiven but excused. I cannot forgive like that. I was involved in a collision between my cycle and a car six years ago. I now have at least some pain in my left foot every day, and need to use a stick to walk any distance. I would like to excuse the driver who hit me. To turn back the clock so that things were as they were before. But things hurt, and will continue to hurt until the day I die. The clock cannot be wound back. The negligent way the car driver drove that evening cannot be excused. But I can forgive. I can hold nothing against him and I can ask God not to hold anything against him either. But even after I have forgiven him the pain is still there. Forgiveness costs. And forgiveness is also ongoing. Every time I hurt I have to remind myself that I have forgiven this man, to forgive him again. and again, as many times as I need to. As Timothy the Obscure says on the same forum:
It seems to me that when Jesus said to forgive 70x7, he really meant that if you're counting, you're not forgiving.