Daily Lesson for June 17, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 18 verses 21 and 22:

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

There are people I know whose capacity to forgive astounds and inspires and deeply, deeply humbled me. They live with the still deeply-painful scars from wounds inflicted on them sometimes decades ago.  The scars never go away; sometimes even the wound does not heal; yet they go on, and their lives are a source of hope inspiration and to others -- to me. They choose to allow the trauma that has happened to them to be transfigured from a thing of terror and fear and allow it to become a sign of mercy and of healing. They refuse to remain bound in fear and hatred and locked in the world of perpetual victimhood.

Many years ago, a woman I know shared with me that as a child she had been sexually abused by a man close to the family. The memory had been repressed for a long time -- as these kinds of memories often are -- but had been unlocked a few years earlier. She had then spent several years working through the memory and the still-traumatic feelings it evoked.

She wanted to talk with me about what forgiveness was like for her. She offered to me a reflection on the text from today's Lesson. "Do you know where Jesus told Peter that he had to be willing to forgive 77 times?"  "Yes," I said. "Well, I heard somewhere that that could also be translated 77x7 times."  "Yes," I said, "I believe that's correct." "Let me tell you what I have been thinking about and what I have discovered about forgiveness through all of this. The average woman lives to be about 77 years old. I have been thinking that if I am going to forgive him, then I have to learn to forgive 7 days a week for all 77 years of my life. That's what I have to do to forgive, and to no longer be his victim."

Like I said, there are people I know whose capacity to forgive astounds me; she is one of them. May the LORD give her the strength she needs to forgive again today.