Forgiveness

Someone recently gave me this devotion written by Philip Yancey, one of my favorite writers. Yancey has a way of dusting off key components of a biblical faith and give them new life and new meaning. A growing edge for me lately has been forgiveness. Both as someone who forgives and one who seeks forgiveness. Yancey writes, "Forgiveness is achingly difficult, and long after you've forgiven, the wound lives on in memory." Those words struck as I read, causing me to pause and think about the pain of forgiveness is not usually the act itself but the memory that is left on our hearts and minds. Then I thought about the cross and the forgiveness that is offered through it. In that case the act of forgiving was painful because it was in the shape of a cross. I am thankful that with God the memory of the would that I cause when I sin is separated as far as the east is from the west.