One of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah 61:3 “to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”. Such a beautiful promise that I have seen God fulfill in my life. I am so very thankful that God can use all the hurt, scars, tears, and valleys I have endured and turn them into something that brings glory to Him.
One of those areas that God has used over and over is how He began cultivating within me a spirit of forgiveness. As someone who has experienced abuse as a six-year-old by the hand of an uncle and again as a 13-year-old by my own father that was a difficult process.
Forgiveness is a blessing to receive from God and from other people but when it comes to me being the one needing to do the forgiving, it was a tremendous battle. My father was easier to forgive right after I became a Christian at the age of 15 but as for my uncle, I carried that unforgiveness until my early 30s. My brother called one day to let me know our uncle was in the hospital. I did not care he was in there. I did not care he was dying. I did not care he was not saved and to be honest, I thought he deserved an eternity separated from God. Hadn’t I earned the right to be angry? To be asked to forgive what he had done almost seemed cruel and extremely unfair. I had a need to cling to unforgiveness like something I thought I was owed. I had allowed that heaviness of the burden of my past to bury within me a deep anger and bitterness.
I was well into what I like to refer to as a “Jonah fit”. I wanted God to rain down fire from heaven. I wanted my uncle to be punished and I most certainly did not want him to be forgiven by me or by God. I knew I needed to pray for his salvation, but I refused. This began a weeklong fight with God. Forgiveness seemed to be the theme of every bible verse that came in on my email, sermons on the radio and in my devotions. Then one day that week God reminded me, Melodie no one deserves forgiveness or heaven, but you deserve hell as much as your uncle.
That is when God broke me.God’s grace was something I knew I did not deserve but He gave it to me because He loved me. He loved my uncle too. God reminded me of Christ on the cross where He prayed to the Father to “Forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He prayed to forgive the ones who betrayed Him, beat Him, mocked Him, rejected Him, and nailed Him to the cross. If Jesus can forgive that, who am I to withhold what was given to me so freely. Through the grace of God, I forgave my uncle and began to pray that God would send someone to speak truth to him. He accepted Christ the day before he died.
The sweet release that happened when I fully surrendered that stronghold over to the Lord was the beginning of the healing I needed – and that could not begin until I was obedient to the call to forgive. The burden of the heaviness I had created within my own heart was never mine to bear. Forgiveness was for my benefit. God’s grace was to be extended through me. God has taken that part of my story and has allowed me to pour it into numerous women over the years. He continues to use it today and even with three women this past month! I have been able to exchange the heaviness for a garment of praise and thank God for using this to minister to other believers.
Will you allow God to redeem all of your story? There is someone who needs to hear it. God will give you those opportunities if you ask Him to bring them to you. If you will surrender it to Him, He will give you beauty for the ashes, an oil of joy for all the mourning and the garment of praise for your heaviness.
Melodie
WHBC Secretary