A story
The story is very simple.
It begins with a girl with her father.
The father did some very wrong things that hurt his family.
And he left, leaving scars in this family's hearts, and of course, in this girl's.
This girl grew up without her father, sometimes she felt angry, sometimes she missed him, every day.
Sometimes she cried alone. Because this was a secret keep in her heart.
She felt angry because her father didn't love her like her friends' fathers.
She felt terrible.
Eventually this girl grew up. The Lord has taken care of her and her family.
One day she met her father again, in an unexpected occasion.
Her father looked at her, carefully. He missed his family.
But this girl grown-up didn't respond.
Her feeling was complicated, mixing with anger and mercy.
Angry because she cannot forgive what he did to her family, mercy because the Lord told her to forgive.
She remembered how the Lord forgives her sins, and how the Lord told her to forgive others.
She wanted to learn God's lessons, but another voice in her mind reminded her the awful times her family experienced in the past.
Every dreadful moment, every heart-breaking scene, every bitterness told her not to forgive.
But the Lord told her to forgive, because the bible is full of stories of forgiveness.
She wondered what love is, and the Lord told her love is to sacrifice, love is to forgive.
Day after day passed.
One day, this girl, turned into a woman, met her father in the hospital. Her father got the last stage lung cancer.
The Lord guided her to met him.
She cried. She told him about the stories she read in the bible.
Her father repented. And baptized in the hospital before the hospital pastors.
After five day of morning visits, reading bible to her father, he's gone. In peace.
She still wondered what is love. What is forgiveness.
This is such an easy topic known by child, and hard topic to learn by adult.
She is now thankful for her father, because she remembers the days her father listened to her bible stories.
No bitterness anymore. The old things are gone.
Her mother is still keeping the anger in her heart, because those old things still keep hurting her soul.
The grown-up woman keep praying for her mother, one day she can get THEM over.
To experience the Lord's forgiveness, and to learn to forgive.
This story does not end. It continues.
I don't know the ending. But I just know God is still loving, and He asks us to keep forgiving.
Keep forgiving, as God is forgiving.
We love, as God first loved us. (1 John 4:19)