We are all on a lifelong journey and
the core of its meaning,
the terrible demand of its centrality is
forgiving and being forgiven.

By that rocky and formidable climb
- the sweat of forgiveness -
we can peak the mountain of human suffering and
gaze down on the meaning of our own history.

For every Believer, wrongs are a life-long challenge.
There is no harder work in life than to forgive.
It is a Labor so hard that few will work the work, which is
to say, "die the death."

Only by forgiving will we comprehend the
Ghastly Cross and
our Bloody Savior's gift of innocence.
Innocence quite beyond forgiveness.
Given to me, to all.

 
I am a shameful expert in bitterness.
I am all too familiar with its dark paths and soul-traps.
I know the ruts it carves in your mind that
your feet find so easily, so habitually.
I am acquainted with the alienation from God
that is the reward of unforgiveness.

 
Bitterness has been my torment and in the end,
my crucible of spiritual freedom.

I have begged the Lord to make me more an expert on forgiveness than bitterness.

I know that my own story, in the end, is going to be only one of grace and forgiveness,
not achievement and honors.

The measure of a life's value, will - in the end of all -
be the measure of forgiveness, nothing else.

  
I asked the Lord for rich secrets of forgiveness.
And I discovered the one secret that is the fulcrum
of the seesaw of life's agony.

That secret is love.

So I tell you the secret at the beginning and
then I will let the Secret unfold Himself . . . .

Come with me, beloved of God, come with me
to behold the miracle of the universe - forgiveness.

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Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick