a prayer for forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.
-Dag Hammarskjold

Some "stuff" has happened in my church over the last couple of years. I would love to tell all the non-believers I know that once you become a Christian things get easier and everyone gets along perfectly... unfortunately, we are all still people and we fall short, every day.

Since we've been members at CCC we have known half a dozen couples that have for some reason left. Most left angry over some perceived slight or perhaps a very real disagreement. It's their perogative to do this. It wouldn't be the way I would want to handle things because I believe that conflict resolution and forgiveness is part of real Christianity and to be real we have to wrestle with these things. But they're tough. And before I start sounding all holier-than, I can't really say what I'd do because I've never been offended by something that happened at church.

One couple in particular had been our friends -- outside of church friends. We were still in the friendship-building stage but they'd been to our house, T had helped them move. We signed papers stating that we believed they would make great parents to the kids they hoped to someday adopt. Then they had a disagreement with the church leadership and left. I sent them an e-mail from both of us, from our hearts, asking them not to go and stating our hope that the friendship would survive their departure. We never received a reply to that e-mail or any other attempt we made to reach them. They simply never talked to us again.

A few weeks ago, T bumped in to him at the library. He seemed really happy to see T. Then last night she left a voice mail to share their web address for their adoption page: they're about to leave for the Ukraine to adopt. I had completely forgotten that we had signed those papers.

I have to say -- I had written them off some time ago -- in my hurt and anger. I've found that I am having a hard time forgiving them. How arrogant of me. And how sad to feel this way.

Lord, let me let these feelings go and pray them safely to pick up the children they've ached for all this time. I would even love to have the chance to try and recultivate that friendship, to see their new babies and their new home. Let me forgive as I am forgiven -- completely, with no looking back at what's past.

One again, God finds a way to work -- through a child.