The Best Gift

The best gift I received this Christmas was the gift of forgiveness. It hasn’t come easily. In fact it’s not really a gift I wanted. I wasn’t looking for it nor did I really want to find it.

None of us deserves forgiveness, but that’s what Christmas is all about.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. He gave so that we could be forgiven.

Joy was void from our lives this Christmas. Taken by one who chose to wound us. The deliberate act of selfishness.

I want to hate her. I’ve been filled with loathing toward her and her family. Waking from deep sleeps with words on my lips that are anything but loving. I want to inflict as much pain on her and her family that she has inflicted upon us. I want to rip her hair out and disgrace her in front of everyone. I want revenge when revenge is not mine to have. I want to spit in her face. I want to label her with the letter “W”.

But, as I was watching a silly GMC movie on Christmas day the Lord took hold of my heart with the message of forgiveness. I had uncontrollable tears that I could not stop from rolling down my cheeks and heaves within my chest that brought me to my knees.

The best gift I could give myself this Christmas is the gift of forgiveness. It’s not a gift to her. She will have to find her own.

Forgiveness is not something we give to another person it’s a gift we give to ourselves. It doesn’t come cheaply. It was bought with a price. The price of one who was born over 2000 years ago. Born to die. Born to bridge a gap between God and man. Born to die for our forgiveness.

“Jesus is the reason for the season” as so many are fond of saying and yet they hold bitterness and hatred in their hearts. If we don’t also have forgiveness with the Jesus of Christmas, then his birth and death are in vane.

Love is a funny thing. It will either break us or make us into better more loving and selfless people. I had a lady once ask me the secret to my long marriage and I told her that she probably didn’t want to really know. She said I was probably right, but wanted to know anyway. I told her……

SELFLESSNESS & FORGIVENESS.

She then replied that I was right, she really didn’t want to know, because she couldn’t give that. Not for 30 long years.

The question that continues to haunt me is how can someone who has only invested 3 months into a marriage “know” that it is over. How can they “know” that it won’t work. How can they so judge another by such little time. How can they throw away so little as if it is a trinket from a vending machine. It is a true reflection on her values. A true reflection on those that surround her.

My family and I have gone through the most agonizing days in the last 3 months, suffering more pain than I could imagine. Because I loved her. I chose to look beyond her faults and truly love her. I took her into my life as if she was my very own flesh and blood. And now I have to just forget her. Forget that she was there. Forget that she promised to be with my son forever. Forget that she made a promise before God and man to love him till death do them part. I’ve thought on many days that she organized the biggest hoax. A scam. She lied to everyone. And she is continuing to lie.

SELFISHNESS.

That’s all I can sum it up to. Complete and utter selfishness of an individual who takes such commitments as if they were pinky promises. She got bored and called it quits. Because anyone who really knows what love is, knows that there will be gloomy days as well as mountain top days. Days of anger and days of forgiveness. Days of sadness and days of joy.

This gift of forgiveness is not going to come easily to me. In fact it’s something that I will have to be reminded of every single day. Reminded when she files for the divorce. Reminded again next Christmas right after the divorce. When my heart feels as if it can’t take anymore and yet, forgiving this girl who no more deserves forgiveness than me, but forgiving her so that I (we) can move on and live the lives that Christ has called us to live. Forgive so that I can be free.

Forgive. Just as in Christ, God has forgiven me.

Reminding myself daily that I do not stand in the place of God.

Perhaps next Christmas or even next week, it will be the gift of love. As the AA slogan says, “just for today”.

Just for today I chose the gift of forgiveness.