A redeeming forgiveness
There’s an alternative to letting anger or resentment drive our lives: opening our hearts to God’s love, which redeems and heals.
Forgiveness can be a game changer. Turned down for an apartment rental after mentioning my husband’s ethnic name, I broke down in tears of anger and disappointment. But my husband quickly forgave the offense, which enabled him to graciously reach out himself. The outcome of that conversation was an appointment for a showing – during which any prejudice fell completely away. We were warmly invited to make the apartment our home.
At first I marveled at his quick ability to forgive and move forward. But Christian Science has taught me that the capacity to forgive isn’t simply a good human quality that we may possess to varying degrees. Spiritually considered, it’s a God-gifted resource drawn from the infinite well of divine Love and reflected spiritually by each of God’s children.
The psalmist wrote, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psalms 103:2-4). From the amplitude of God’s love flows to us the benefits of forgiveness, healing, and redemption of whatever would try to rob us of joy and progress. We are created by God to reflect – and to receive – His healing love and tender mercy in any and every case.
And yet, forgiveness can sometimes seem out of reach. The psalmist’s counsel to “forget not all his benefits” can remind us that God, divine Love, is the unchanging Redeemer of any circumstance. Divine Love loves as the sun shines – fully and equally on all. Recognizing God as the source of all good and right desires, motives, and actions, we find capacities for forgiveness that we might otherwise miss. Then incidents that produced anger and hurt become occasions to draw on the deep, healing resources of Love.
This isn’t to say that we disregard an injustice or other wrong. Rather, it provides a spiritual basis for empowering us – and others – to think and act more consistently with our nature as the reflection of infinite Love.
The founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote, “Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus’ teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit, – the law of divine Love” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 19).
Jesus understood that genuine love isn’t scanty or given out to some and not others. He proved that God, Love, is the very substance and source of what we are as God’s children. From divine Love flows the power of Christ – the power that overrules resistance to healing and to correcting human errors through love and forgiveness. No case is too hard for Christ-love to redeem and heal. Nothing can move us beyond the healing and redeeming reach of the ever-present, all-powerful divine Principle, Love.
For a long time I held on to a hurt that seemed unforgivable. Then, while praying one day, I caught a glimpse of what it means to be the reflection of Love. I felt such a closeness to our Maker, God. I realized I could consign anything to divine Love. I could relinquish my fears and doubts and let the healing Christ replace them with an openness to forgiving.
Forgiveness suddenly felt completely possible to me – no longer contingent on the past behavior of others, but more about redeeming myself through Love. I could see that the same Christ message that was coming to me, releasing me from anger and hurt, comes to us all to redeem us from whatever would undermine harmony. And I forgave with a deep and unforgettably healing forgiveness.
There is a scriptural passage that has become a go-to reminder to me of our instant access to the blessing of Christ-impelled forgiveness: “The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up” (II Chronicles 36:23). No one is beyond the healing reach of God’s love. We can give up hurt, betrayal, annoyance, anger – whatever would seem to hinder that healing forgiveness – for the universal love of God, at any moment. Nothing can block the endless flow of divine good that empowers us to know the freedom of Christly forgiveness.