My husband was asked to speak in church some time ago, his topic was Forgiveness. He shared a story about a man who delivered milk to an Amish community. One day the man went into the town and shot several people before taking his own life. The Amish community must have been suffering terribly for the loss of life that had been caused by this troubled man. In their grief they reached out to the family of the milkman and offered their forgivness and love. My husband expressed how great an example this had been in his life of forgivness when we have been wronged.
The story was very touching and came from a conference address entitled The Healing Power of Forgiveness . (You can click the title to read the entire message.) After sharing the impact this story had on his life my husband said something to the effect of, "I haven't anything major to forgive in my life and the most I've had to use forgiveness is with my wife." As these words left his mouth I felt several heads turn in my direction to catch my reaction to his comment. I'm sure they were all wondering what caused his remarks and if he'd be in trouble later.
The truth is that we haven't had anything huge happen between us and we hardly ever even disagree. Knowing this, what he meant by his comment was that we forgive the little things and it has been a blessing in our marriage. At that point I had a choice, I could be angry with my husband for seemingly airing our dirty laundry to our entire church congregation or I could take the comment for what he meant, not what he said and feel happy to have such a great husband. Luckily, I chose the later. I had several people stop me in the hall and inquire what that was all about and I was already prepared to say, "No, he's not in trouble, I know what he meant."
We were watching a movie the other day called Faith Like Potatoes, in the movie the main charactor is a farmer/preacher and at one point they had a terrible tragedy in their family. His wife was walking down the street one day and someone said to her, "If you'd had more faith this would not have happened." She was taken aback by the comment but continued on her way. When she got to the restaurant where she was meeting a friend for lunch she had tears in her eyes. When her friend asked what was the matter she replied simply, "someone said something thoughtless."
How often are we approached by individuals who make comments that are terribly hurtful. Many times they are unaware of our current challenges and almost all the time would have held their tongue if they had known how much hurt their remarks would cause. So there is a two fold challenge in this; first, to try not to make comments when you are unaware of the situation and thus aviod causing offense, the second I believe is far more difficult, making a decision to not take offense when such comments are made toward us, to realize that it was a thoughtless remark and let it go.
The story was very touching and came from a conference address entitled The Healing Power of Forgiveness . (You can click the title to read the entire message.) After sharing the impact this story had on his life my husband said something to the effect of, "I haven't anything major to forgive in my life and the most I've had to use forgiveness is with my wife." As these words left his mouth I felt several heads turn in my direction to catch my reaction to his comment. I'm sure they were all wondering what caused his remarks and if he'd be in trouble later.
The truth is that we haven't had anything huge happen between us and we hardly ever even disagree. Knowing this, what he meant by his comment was that we forgive the little things and it has been a blessing in our marriage. At that point I had a choice, I could be angry with my husband for seemingly airing our dirty laundry to our entire church congregation or I could take the comment for what he meant, not what he said and feel happy to have such a great husband. Luckily, I chose the later. I had several people stop me in the hall and inquire what that was all about and I was already prepared to say, "No, he's not in trouble, I know what he meant."
We were watching a movie the other day called Faith Like Potatoes, in the movie the main charactor is a farmer/preacher and at one point they had a terrible tragedy in their family. His wife was walking down the street one day and someone said to her, "If you'd had more faith this would not have happened." She was taken aback by the comment but continued on her way. When she got to the restaurant where she was meeting a friend for lunch she had tears in her eyes. When her friend asked what was the matter she replied simply, "someone said something thoughtless."
How often are we approached by individuals who make comments that are terribly hurtful. Many times they are unaware of our current challenges and almost all the time would have held their tongue if they had known how much hurt their remarks would cause. So there is a two fold challenge in this; first, to try not to make comments when you are unaware of the situation and thus aviod causing offense, the second I believe is far more difficult, making a decision to not take offense when such comments are made toward us, to realize that it was a thoughtless remark and let it go.
1 comment:
Thank you for your insights. There have been times when people have made comments - like when my husband first became paralyzed and even when my oldest daughter was dying - that left me wondering what on earth possessed people to say what they did. I hope I can always remember your words and excuse their thoughtlessness.
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