JANET'S GEMS


Janet Mennen
Executive Director 
 

Following the shocking murder of our football coach this past year, our small community of Parkersburg had an influx of reporters from across the nation. A number of them expressed amazement at the unconditional love and compassion shown by the victim’s family and many in the community toward the family of the one who committed the crime. One member of the media said the rest of the world doesn't get it – they expected hatred rather than love. A few reporters commented that the prevailing attitude of forgiveness was the “real” story – the one they wanted their viewers to hear.

Getting even, making someone pay, or wanting to see the guilty squirm makes perfect sense to those who live outside of a relationship with God . . . and to be honest, often to Christians. Like the unforgiving servant in Jesus' parable (Matthew 18:23-35), each one of us is often unwilling to let go of our anger, our pride, and our self-righteousness. We feel entitled to these feelings, we're comfortable with them, and it becomes easy to let them consume us.

But God wants something better for us. He knows a life filled with bitterness is no life at all. Instead, God wants his children to have an abundant life in him. He wants us to have a life free of destructive thoughts and emotions and filled instead with the freedom to be the people he’s called us to be – people who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, show love when others might show hatred, and forgiveness when others might seek revenge.

This abundant life comes, first of all, from the freedom and joy we have as forgiven sinners, given to us through the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. And it overflows when we, in turn, forgive one another. The words of Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, in his devotional book, “God’s Best for My Life,” say it well: “The joy of the forgiven is the delight in being forgiving.”

I believe that is what many in our community have come to understand – that because there are no limits to God’s forgiveness, there should be none to ours as well!

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free
and discover the prisoner was you"

(Lewis B. Smedes).