Love Notes from Abby- The Power of Forgiveness

Transcript:

I hope this Monday morning finds you well.

Well, I know there are many of you who know my story, but I realized that there are many who do not, and the title of this love note is not going to make any sense if you don't know a little of the background.

Back in the good old days of the fall of 2006 I was living the dream.

I was driving a minivan, teaching high school with my husband, taking my daughter to kindergarten and expecting a baby boy in late September.

By worldly standards, my life wasn't anything exceptional… but it was everything I had ever dreamed of.

I not only loved my husband Rick, I really, really liked him.

And my Macy was the prettiest and smartest girl in kindergarten, and I really liked her. I enjoyed her company and her humor and her wisdom beyond her years.

And then there was our Caleb. He arrived at nine and a half pounds alert and had the gentlest spirit.

I really was living the dream.

I wouldn't have traded places with anyone in the world, and I wanted exactly what I had.

And then in the blink of an eye, everything changed.

On October 13th, 2006, two and a half weeks after Caleb was born, a 26 year old man going over a hundred miles an hour struck my family head on.

And the reason I wasn't in the van? Well, I had been having chest pains and made a last minute decision to get checked out in the emergency room.

It was no more than five minutes before I would have loaded into the van with my family that we decided I really did need to go get checked out. And so on that very rare occasion, we weren't all together.

When I was at the emergency room, I couldn't get ahold of Rick. And so I began to panic, and I left the emergency room and just started driving back on the route that they were going.

And then my eyes were assaulted by the barrage of the flashing lights.

I was standing on the side of the road when the state trooper told me, “We found no survivors.”

For a long time. I thought that included me too.

And it was on that day that I began the before and the after of my life.

The last 12 years have taught me lessons I never really wanted to learn. The biggest change though was that God became my everything when I had nothing.

It wasn't an automatic thing. It was a wandering path with steep, treacherous mountains and low, low valleys.

But I learned firsthand that He keeps His promises and His ways are best. Which leads me to today's Love Note about what I would say to the man that killed my family had he lived.

I forgive you.

I hate the choices you made that day.

I hate the consequences that I along with more people than you will ever know because of your choices.

I hate so much of what you did, but I forgive you.

I forgive you because hating you wouldn't bring my family back.

I forgive you because bitterness and anger are too heavy, a burden to carry.

But really I forgive you because I have been forgiven so much.

I don't know anything about you other than your name and age and what you're doing. October 13th, 2006 but I do know that very early on after the wreck, God granted me a gift when I wasn't mad at you or hated you. And it was on the day that I prayed that you knew Jesus, that I knew it was sincere.

When God tells us to forgive and pray for our enemies, He knows that it's really for our benefit and not theirs.

My prayer didn't save the man who killed my family, but maybe just maybe it's saved me.

This week we will be talking way more about forgiveness and what it looks like in real life… and in the yuck and in the non Pollyanna sort of way. When you're devastated and when you're hurt and when things are really, really bad, but how through forgiveness, you can honestly know joy again.

Today’s Charge:

Today's charge I don't take lightly, but I encourage you to start the process of forgiveness and pray for someone who has hurt you.

Matthew 5:43-44 says,