![]() Dear Friend, How are you? I’m well. Today, I would like to write on forgiveness. Does the subject “forgiving others” make you uncomfortable or remind you of some bitter experiences? If that is the case, I think this might be for you. Although I wrote on total forgiveness to my friend in 2019, I’ve not written a blog on it; I kept procrastinating. I felt that it still made me uncomfortable to bring that subject up and I’m not there yet to total forgiveness. But I also realized that I had been posting blogs on love, holiness, being true worshiper and so on, not that I reached the point where I should be. I felt I must write on total forgiveness, while I’m still on the journey. On one Sunday in 2017, a Singaporean brother in my church said to me, “When is she coming?”, mentioning a specific person. He was the one who earlier prophesized over me that there would be a big shift coming and my prayer would be answered, a week before I was baptized by the Holy Spirit back in 2016. I was caught off guard and very surprised, as it was a day after that person came to Korea from another country. And he said to me, “Be prepared!” Knowing the person’s character and some traumatic occasions she brought in the past, I said to him, “Is it about some kind of spiritual warfare?” And he said, frowning, “Well, there is bleeding here and there.” It made me anxious about my encounter with her to come later and I prayed over it. And you know what? The battle was for real, period. In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about the spiritual warfare which started in 2017. The devil used my mother by putting delusion in her to torture me, but actually I found out the real battle was not from the evil spirits in her, but from those in the person the brother warned of. I couldn’t agree more that there was bleeding here and there, though not literal. She and her family left me traumatized. I was filled with bitterness inside me. However, I knew that we should not have bitterness and unforgiving hearts. I actually experienced how important it is to release the unforgiving heart and how the Lord brings blessing when we forgive others. A week before I was baptized by the Holy Spirit in 2016, my pastor made an altar call to pray over forgiveness. I had two persons in my heart at that time that I still struggled to forgive, but I chose to forgive them and went up to the altar. And a week later, I received the precious gift from the Lord, which totally changed my life since then. With that experience, I knew that I shouldn’t really have bitterness toward her and her family. In all honesty, my motive was very selfish. I wanted to forgive them, not to please the Lord first, but I didn’t want to miss out on any opportunity for spiritual blessings from the Lord. I didn’t want to block out the channel of His blessings due to the unforgiving heart. Yet, I was not able to forgive them. The trauma kept lingering in my mind and the pain was still sore. I frequently dreamed about them. Every time when I woke up, I felt I had a nightmare. It really haunted me for more than two years. Then, I happened to listen to Pastor R.T. Kendall’s sermon on Total Forgiveness and I thought I would buy and read his book with the same title, hoping it would help me forgive those who wronged me. The book Total Forgiveness turned out to be very helpful. I chose to forgive them and even bless them, and I repeatedly made up my mind and prayed that I could truly forgive them, and the Lord may bless them spiritually, physically and financially. But whenever the bad memory came up into my mind, it still felt raw. One advice I really liked from his book, though, was that we can forgive someone, but do not necessarily have to reconcile with him or her. He gave an example, something like when a man has an ex-wife who slept with his friend and now lives with him can forgive her and his friend, but he doesn’t have to reconcile with them and meet them for the rest of his life. It indeed gave me a big relief. Then, in the Fall of 2020, the person texted me from an unknown number. I became so uncomfortable that I just thought I would walk away. I thought walking away would be a way to avoid any possible conflicts by exchanging communication with her. So, I simply deleted it and didn’t reply to her. A few days later, she emailed me. Again, I deleted it without replying to her. The more I read her text and email, the angrier I got. I made every effort to forgive and bless her over the past few years. But I still saw how self-centered and arrogant she was from her messages, and it made me so angry. One night, I felt so much pain that I cried out to the Lord. Then, a few days later, He actually changed my heart. When I read a chapter in Psalms, He made me read the Words, putting on His glasses. While I read the verses slowly, I just felt how He looks at her and her family. I saw their wounds in them and I felt the need for their inner healings from the Lord. And I felt how He loves them all. It was indeed a divine intervention I’ve never imagined. Then, I prayed especially for their healings. And I asked the Lord to encounter them in person. In a week or two, after the revelation and the peace came to me, I got long text messages from the person’s daughter. She mentioned the very last occasion that we had almost three years back. And she wrote she realized how disrespectful and how rude she had been to me at that time. She wrote she was so aggressive and abrupt to me, but the even worse thing was that she only got to realize her errors recently. She said sorry that it took so long to realize her faults. My eyes got wet when I read her messages. I knew it was the Holy Spirit who encountered her and made her realize it. She and her mother wanted to meet me, and I chose to obey the Lord. It was a meeting in almost three years since we had that bleeding battle. Yet before the meeting came, I really didn’t want to go and see them. I got a cold and the coronavirus cases spiked. So, I wanted to make an excuse, but I thought I should inquire of the Lord. After the prayer, I felt He wanted me to meet them and He would protect us all. From the outset, I felt Him want me to throw away my emotional baggage before He moves me into a new season. Like I wrote in my previous blogs, I knew I was in a transition. In order to move to the next level where He wants me to go, I had to make myself a clean vessel, not the vessel with bandages here and there. So, finally we met. We hugged one another and we even held hands together for prayer before having drinks in a café. I didn’t say anything that would make them uncomfortable, though I didn’t feel them change much inside. The meeting went well. But you know what? Since then, the enemy started to torture me again. Deep inside my heart, all those bad memories in the past surfaced again. I kept saying to myself, “Now when things get better, you appear. You only wanted to meet for your sake, not for my sake. You are still selfish. Can you remember the days when you were so evil? Read your last email to me and see how evil you were. I know your hidden motives. You would never change. People seldom change even till they go to the grave. And you didn’t even apologize for what you had done!!!” Despite all my efforts for the past few years and my effort to meet them face to face, smiling, I found myself struggling. I knew it was from the enemy. I even lost sleep some time. Then, one morning after I slept very lightly after all those bad thoughts, I turned on an application to play out worship instrumental music on my mobile phone, before reading the Bible. Then, I saw Pastor Joe Sweet preaching being played live. I debated for a second as to whether I would listen to his teaching live or read the Bible. I chose to listen to his message, Set Apart For Glory Pt4. To my utter amazement, his teaching was about forgiveness. I knew it was the Holy Spirit who orchestrated everything. Dear Friend, I’m sharing my story and the links of the messages from Pastors R.T. Kendall and Joe Sweet, hoping they might help you now or in the future. We all get hurt at least once in our lifetime. Like many preachers said, we would end up with being either bitter or better. As I wrote earlier, I think I’m still in the progress toward total forgiveness. Yet I believe I would choose to obey our faithful Father and He would lead me to better. I sometimes try to imagine Satan is laughing at me, if I continue to live in bitterness or unforgiveness. I try to be reminded: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12) This is the battle against Satan, not against people. More importantly, our Father doesn’t want us to live in bitterness, as it ultimately harms and ruins us. He wants to give us Life. Friend, I pray that you and I would forgive, as we were forgiven, and love one another in Jesus’ name. I pray that He will restore health to us and heal us of our wounds (Jeremiah 30:17) in the mighty name of Yeshua. Have a bliss! Yunee Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Comments are closed.
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