THEY WERE a lovely couple. They had gotten married a short time earlier, and before the marriage altar, they had vowed faithfulness and eternal love to each other. Both seemed to have come from a Hollywood movie: tall, slim, attractive—they lacked nothing physically. Everything seemed to point to the success of the new marriage until one day, a woman from her side of the family resolved to seduce that man because she was envious of his wife’s fortune. What no one could imagine was that her plan would give results. Everything collapsed as if it were a house of cards. expectations of a recently married woman were cut short and substituted by a painful path of torment. That pain lasted for months and months until finally, this heroine said to herself: «I have to forgive. God always forgives and gives us another chance.
“Poor thing! What a bad decision she made,» you may be thinking. is the most common way of thinking, a product of the absence of true forgiveness in our lives, of our inability to reflect on what God has done for us. God, who knows our foolishness and from whom our sins are not hidden (Psalm 69:5),»has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities» (Psalm 103:10), but has forgiven us (Isaiah 38:17). Is this not our example to follow? Is this not the path that opens before us as far as our personal relations are concerned? Hence, “If you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses» (Mark 11:25).
A lovely home, a beautiful son, and a lot of happiness surround the marriage I spoke about. She made the decision the Bible invites us to make: to forgive. However, in order to get to the point of making it, she first had to understand that forgiving is not a feeling, but a decision. She was able to make that decision thanks to the strength and hope she found in God. In that way, she was able to see through her own experience that anyone who overlooks an offense promotes love» (Proverbs 17:9, ISV). Forgiving is a miracle that God also can (and wants to) work in your life.
“But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive, your trespasses»(Mark 11:26)