What Does Light Have to do with Darkness?

I can't believe it's been a full month since last sitting at my computer for anything other than official business. But, alas, it most certainly has been. Why? Because my mind has been entangled with the busy time of business. Constant social media posting I felt needed to be done, in order to launch a very important jewelry line, that gives rescued women of human trafficking a means to support themselves. With that, I've been focused.

But today, as I sat on our back porch enjoying the lighted Christmas Tree that is snuggled in a corner just behind a small swing, made even more beautiful by another (much smaller) lighted tree just in front of it, I began thinking about the forgiveness of wrongs that we have committed, or have been committed against us. The one and only...Jesus Christ of Bethlehem, Israel was the one who has freed us from those wrongs, if we can accept it.

The words, "You are forgiven," are much more than mere words. When we speak these words, they can free prisoners from guilt in an instant. When we accept this gift of forgiveness from the Father, we are compelled to become conduits of forgiveness for others who may have wronged us because we also were forgiven when we least deserved it.

I get it. I do. Why would we want to forgive a wrong that was intentional? I suppose we each have our own need to reason it out. For many years I could not, would not, forgive the one who altered my life. He didn't deserve it. I wished the very worst would come to him. The problem with that kind of thinking, with harboring it, nurturing it, is that it keeps a very dark presence inside of us that is trying to hide from the light that was instilled inside us while we were yet inside our mothers womb. It simply cannot be done. Light will always dispel the darkness and we must look at that dark spot, examine it, as we face it. It's always poking its head up...

How can one serve two masters? Matthew 6: 24 says it's not possible, because we nurture one and hate the other. I agree. I always hated that I felt so "evil" towards the man who took my innocence and continued to hold me captive until I bowed to his authority, while "serving" the One who rescued me from such a dark existence. It took many years to realize the one holding me captive was also controlled. Controlled by hate, insecurity, and hopelessness. His actions were coming from something so deeply imbedded inside him, his only release was to put them on another. I was that other. 

When God showed me that, I was able to forgive him, just as I had been forgiven. Forgiving someone doesn't mean you have to allow them back into your life. It just means that now, your heart can receive all the light that it was intended to have. I won't deceive you and say it was an easy road. It wasn't. We have to CHOOSE forgiveness. I am a free woman because I chose to forgive, even if it took me way longer than it should have. I continue to forgive when it's needed, for all wrongs committed against me, whether intentional, or accidental. I Corinthians 13:5 says (when speaking about love), it "...keeps no record of wrongs."

We have been given a power that would be impossible had it not been for God's sacrifice.

Receive and give it generously and often. Freedom is never easy, but is so very life giving! 

Leaning into what God has blessed me with, here you will find me...in Mary's World.