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Teach Me to Forgive
One day a while back, a man, his heart heavy with grief, was walking in the woods. As he thought about his life this day, he knew many things were not right. He thought about those who had lied about him back when he had a job. His thoughts turned to those who had stolen his things and cheated him. He remembered family that had passed on. His mind turned to the illness he had that no one could cure. His very soul was filled with anger, resentment and frustration.
Standing there this day, searching for answers he could not find, knowing all else had failed him, he knelt at the base of an old oak tree to seek the one he knew would always be there, and with tears in his eyes, he prayed “Lord, You have done wonderful things for me in this life. You have told me to do many things for you, and I happily obeyed. Today, you have told me to forgive. I am sad, Lord, because I cannot. I don’t know how. It is not fair Lord. I didn’t deserve these wrongs that were done against me and I shouldn’t have to forgive. As perfect as your way is Lord, this one thing I cannot do, for I don’t know how to forgive. My anger is so deep Lord, I fear I may not hear you, but I pray that you teach me to do this one thing cannot do - teach me to forgive.”
As he knelt there in the quiet shade of that old oak tree, he felt something fall onto his shoulder. He opened his eyes. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw something red on his shirt. He could not turn to see what it was because where the oak tree had been was a large square piece of wood in the ground. He raised his head and saw two feet held to the wood with a large spike through them. He raised his head more, and tears came to his eyes as he saw Jesus hanging on a cross. He saw spikes in His hands, a gash in His side, a torn and battered body, deep thorns sunk into His head. Finally he saw the suffering and pain on His precious face. As their eyes met, the man’s tears turned to sobbing, and Jesus began to speak.
“Have you ever told a lie?” He asked.
The man answered “Yes, Lord.”
“Have you ever been given too much change and kept it?”
The man answered “Yes, Lord.” And the man sobbed more and more.
“Have you ever taken something from work that wasn’t yours?” Jesus asked.
And the man answered “Yes, Lord.”
“Have you ever sworn, using my Father’s name in vain?”
The man, crying now, answered “Yes, Lord.”
As Jesus asked many more times, “Have you ever”? The man’s crying became uncontrollable, for he could only answer “Yes, Lord.”
Then Jesus turned His head from one side to the other, and the man felt something fall on his other shoulder. He looked and saw that it was the blood of Jesus. When he looked back up, his eyes met those of Jesus, and there was a look of love the man had never seen or known before. Jesus said, “I didn’t deserve this either, but I forgive you.”
Author Unknown
Forgiven Forever
Lisa sat on the floor of her old room, staring at the box that lay in front
of her. It was an old shoe box that she had decorated to become a memory box
many years before. Stickers and penciled flowers covered the top and sides.
Its edges were worn, the corners fo the lid taped so as to keep their shape.
It had been three years since Lisa last opened the box. A sudden
move to Boston had kept her from packing it. But now that she was back home,
she took the time to look again at the memories.
Fingering the corners of the box and stroking its cover, Lisa pictured in her
mind what was inside.
There was a photo of the family trip to the Grand Canyon, a note
from her friend telling her that Nick Bicotti liked her, and the Indian
arrowhead she had found while on her senior class trip.
One by one, she remembered the items in the box, lingering over
the sweetest, until she came to the last and only painful memory. She knew
what it looked like–a single sheet of paper upon which lines had been drawn
to form boxes, 490 of them to be exact. And each box contained a check mark,
one for each time.
The story behind it……….
“How many times must I forgive my brother?” the disciple Peter
had asked Jesus. “Seven times?” Lisa’s Sunday school teacher had read
Jesus’surprise answer to the class. “Seventy times seven.”
Lisa had leaned over to her brother Brent as the teacher continued reading.
“How many times is that?” she whispered. Brent, though two years younger,
was smarter than she was.
“Four hundred and ninety,” Brent wrote on the corner of his Sunday school
paper. Lisa saw the message, nodded, and sat back in her chair. She watched
her brother as the lesson continued. He was small for his age, with narrow
shoulders and short arms. His glasses were too large for his face, and his
hair always matted in swirls. He bordered on being a nerd, but his incredible
skills at everything, especially music, made him popular with his classmates.
Brent had learned to play the piano at age four, the clarinet at
age seven, and had just begun to play oboe. His music teachers said he’d be
a famous musician someday. There was only one thing at which Lisa was better
than Brent–basketball. They played it almost every afternoon after school.
Brent could have refused to play, but he knew that it was Lisa’s only joy in
the midst of her struggles to get C’s and D’s at school.
Lisa’s attention came back to her Sunday school teacher as the
woman finished the lesson and closed with prayer. That same Sunday afternoon
found brother and sister playing basketball in the driveway. It was then that
the counting had begun. Brent was guarding Lisa as she dribbled toward the
basket. He had tried to bat the ball away, got his face near her elbow, and
took a shot on the chin. “Ow!”, he cried out and turned away.
Lisa saw her opening and drove to the basket, making an easy
lay-up. She gloated over her success but stopped when she saw Brent. “You
okay?”,she asked. Brent shrugged his shoulders.
“Sorry,” Lisa said. “Really. It was a cheap shot.”
“It’s all right. I forgive you,” he said. A thin smile then formed on his
face. “Just 489 more times though.”
“Whaddaya mean?” Lisa asked.
“You know…what we learned in Sunday school today. You’re
supposed to forgive someone 490 times. I just forgave you, so now you have
489 left,” he kidded. The two of them laughed at the thought of keeping
track of every time Lisa had done something to Brent. They were sure she had
gone past 490 long ago.
The rain interrupted their game, and the two moved indoors. “Wanna play
Battleship?” Lisa asked. Brent agreed, and they were soon on the floor of
the living room with their game boards in front of them. Each took turns
calling out a letter and number combination, hoping to hit each other’s ships.
Lisa knew she was in trouble as the game went on. Brent had only
lost one ship out of five. Lisa had lost three. Desperate to win, she
found herself leaning over the edge of Brent’s barrier ever so slightly.
She was thus able to see where Brent had placed two fo his ships. She quickly
evened the score.
Pleased, Lisa searched once more for the location of the last two
ships. She peered over the barrier again, but this time Brent caught her in
the act. “Hey, you’re cheating!” He stared at her in disbelief.
Lisa’s face turned red. Her lips quivered. “I’m sorry,” she said,
staring at the carpet. There was not much Brent could say. He knew Lisa
sometimes did things like this. He felt sorry that Lisa found so few things
she could do well. It was wrong for her to cheat, but he knew the temptation
was hard for her.
“Okay, I forgive you,” Brent said. Then he added with a small
laugh, “I guess it’s down to 488 now, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She returned his kindness with a weak smile
and added, “Thanks for being my brother, Brent.”
Brent’s forgiving spirit gripped Lisa, and she wanted him to know
how sorry she was. It was that evening that she had made the chart with the
490 boxes. She showed it to him before he went to bed.
“We can keep track of every time I mess up and you forgive me,” she said.
“See, I’ll put a check in each box–like this.” She placed two marks in the
upper left-hand boxes.
“These are for today.” Brent raised his hands to protest. “You
don’t need to keep–”
“Yes I do!” Lisa interrupted. “You’re always forgiving me, and I
want to keep track. Just let me do this!” She went back to her room and
tacked the chart to her bulletin board.
There were many opportunities to fill in the chart in the years that
followed. She once told the kids at school that Brent talked in his
sleep and called out Rhonda Hill’s name, even though it wasn’t true. The
teasing caused Brent days and days of misery. When she realized how cruel she
had been, Lisa apologized sincerely. That night she marked box number 96.
Forgiveness number 211 came in the tenth grade when Lisa failed to bring home
his English book. Brent had stayed home sick that day and had asked her to
bring it so he could study for a quiz. She forgot and he got a C.
Number 393 was for lost keys…418 for the extra bleach she put in
the washer, which ruined his favorite polo shirt…449, the dent she had put
in his car when she had borrowed it.
There was a small ceremony when Lisa checked number 490. She used a gold pen
for the check mark, had Brent sign the chart, and then placed it in her
memory box.
“I guess that’s the end,” Lisa said. “No more screw-ups from me anymore!”
Brent just laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Number 491 was just another one of Lisa’s careless mistakes, but its hurt
lasted a lifetime. Brent had become all that his music teachers said he
would. Few could play the oboe better than he. In
his fourth year at the best music school in the United States, he
received the opportunity of a lifetime–a chance to try out for New York
City’s great orchestra.
The tryout would be held sometime during the following two weeks.
It would be the fulfillment of his young dreams. But he never got the
chance. Brent had been out when the call about the tryout came to the house.
Lisa was the only one home and on her way out the door, eager to get to work
on time.
“Two-thirty on the tenth,” the secretary said on the phone. Lisa
did not have a pen, but she told herself that she could remember it.
“Got it. Thanks.” I can remember that, she thought. But she did
not. It was a week later around the dinner table that Lisa realized her
mistake.
“So, Brent,” his mom asked him, “When do you try out?”
“Don’t know yet. They’re supposed to call.” Lisa froze in her seat.
“Oh, no!” she blurted out loud. “What’s today’s date? Quick!”
“It’s the twelfth,” her dad answered. “Why?”
A terrible pain ripped through Lisa’s heart. She buried her face in
her hands, crying. “Lisa, what’s the matter?” her mother asked.
Through sobs Lisa explained what had happened. “It was two days
ago…the tryout…two-thirty…the call came…last week.” Brent sat
back in his chair, not believing Lisa.
“Is this one of your jokes, sis?” he asked, though he could tell
her misery was real. She shook her head, still unable to look at him.
“Then I really missed it?” She nodded.
Brent ran out of the kitchen without a word. He did not come out
of his room the rest of the evening. Lisa tried once to knock on the
door, but she could not face him. She went to her room where she cried
bitterly.
Suddenly she knew that she had to do. She had ruined Brent’s life. He could
never forgive her for that. She had failed her family, and there was nothing
to do but to leave home. Lisa packed her pickup truck in the middle of the
night and left a note behind, telling her folks she’d be all right. She began
writing a note to Brent, but her words sounded empty to her. Nothing I say
could make a difference anyway, she thought.
Two days later she got a job as a waitress in Boston. She found
an apartment not too far from the restaurant. Her parents tried many times
to reach her, but Lisa ignored their letters.
“It’s too late,” she wrote them once. “I’ve ruined Brent’s life, and I’m not
coming back.”
Lisa did not think she would ever see home again. But one day in
the restaurant where she worked she saw a face she knew. “Lisa!” said Mrs.
Nelson, looking up from her plate. “What a surprise.”
The woman was a friend of Lisa’s family from back home. “I was so
sorry to hear about your brother,” Mrs. Nelson said softly. “Such a terrible
accident. But we can be thankful that he died quickly. He didn’t suffer.”
Lisa stared at the woman in shock.
“Wh-hat,” she finally stammered.
It couldn’t be! Her brother? Dead? The woman quickly saw that Lisa
did not know about the accident. She told the girl the sad story of the
speeding car, the rush to the hospital, the doctors working over Brent. But
all they could do was not enough to save him.
Lisa returned home that afternoon.
Now she found herself in her room thinking about her brother as she
held the small box that held some of her memories of him. Sadly, she opened
the box and peered inside. It was as she remembered, except for one
item–Brent’s chart. It was not there. In its place, at the bottom of the
box, was an envelope. Her hands shook as she tore it open and removed a
letter.
The first page read:
Dear Lisa,
It was you who kept count, not me.
But if you’re stubborn enough to keep
count, use the new chart I’ve made for you.
Love,
Brent
Lisa turned to the second page where she found a chart just like the one she
had made as a child, but on this one the lines were drawn in perfect
precision. And unlike the chart she had kept, there was but one check mark in
the upper left- hand corner. Written in red felt tip pen over the entire page
were the words: “Number 491. Forgiven, forever.”
Author Unknown
Sand and Stone
The story goes that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.
After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: “Today my best friend saved my life.”
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone. Why?”
The other friend replied: “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but an entire life to forget them.
Send this phrase to the people you’ll never forget. It’s a short message to let them know that you’ll never forget them
Take the time to live.