Early One Morning

I was hot as all get out; see how red my face was. I have on my beautiful Chico blue suit, a gift from my very generous, thoughtful daughter. I wear it often and always take it when traveling; it looks great and never wrinkles.

The Jordanian woman on my right was in mental and emotional pain. She had just poured out her heart, her unsaved husband had been and is currently blatantly unfaithful, and she had asked that I come talk to her and pray with her at the close of the women’s conference session that night. After hearing her story, through the interpreter, Frieda, I asked her, ‘Do you love your husband?’ ‘Oh Yes,’ she said. ‘Do you WANT to stay with him?’ ‘Oh YES,’ she emotionally replied.

What could I say? All that I could say, I said, ‘then stay.’ I prayed that God would give her all she needed to treat her husband like she wants to be treated, that the Father would give her His Forgiveness, His Peace, His joy, His protection and the love of her husband; that God would turn her husband’s heart to Himself. It was like a transformation came over her, her face actually looked different after we prayed, peaceful, even joyful in comparison to the beginning of our meeting when her entire aura and spirit was downcast, depressed and discouraged.

I told her about my mother and my step-dad’s unfaithfulness, how in the first few years of their marriage he had an affair with my mother’s brother’s beautiful wife, Barb, then had an affair with the neighbor down the street. My mother went to the neighbor’s and got him out of bed with the woman. There were other affairs. Finally, she decided she wouldn’t take it any longer; she packed a few things and walked to the front door. As she put out her hand, reaching for the door knob, her eyes fell on the framed picture of the Lord’s Prayer hanging on the wall. The words, ‘and forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us,’ seemed to stand out in bold print. The thought came to her, ‘will you forgive him as I’ve forgiven you?’ For a few minutes she just stood there, looking at and repeating those words, ‘forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us.’ Finally, she dropped her small suitcase and in her heart, she said ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ She made a hard choice, the choice to stay, to forgive him and to love him.

Daddy got saved, surrendered his life to the Lord and daily sought to serve and please His Master. He and mother, both in heaven now, pastored more than one church together, were missionaries in Wyoming and the Dakotas to Native Americans, taught in Christian schools together, were foster parents to almost 100 Native American children, established a commercial business together and were married over 50 years.

Perhaps to my chagrin, years later when she told me this story, I told her, more than once, on different occasions, that she made the wrong choice, but she assured me she had not. I felt he should have treated her better, like the queen that she was, but mother knew how far he had come and from where he had come. She saw him through different eyes and those eyes were full of love and forgiveness.

I don’t know anything about that kind of love, that kind of forgiveness. All I know is that Jesus loved me when I was unlovable; He forgave me and gave me a new start in life when I was making life miserable for myself and others.

He’s ‘growing’ me everyday as I try to learn and develop into all that I can be, all that He wants me to be and helps me to be. I cannot change the past but I can choose to live today, respecting others, remembering and learning from the lessons of ‘yesterday.’

How I thank God for the wonderful memories I have treasured in my heart of my mother and for God’s mercy, forgiveness and grace. And I truly thank God for my step-dad; he was the best dad he could be. At times, I was very hard on him. I know He loved my mother and all his children. Bottom line on my part, I think I just wanted MY daddy, and I couldn’t have him. On my step-dad’s part, he was young with a new baby, a 3 year old daughter then suddenly added to the mix is a 5 year old daughter and 3 older sons. Broken homes are hard on every one involved.

Not sure why I wrote all this except that it came to my mind…a little family history perhaps. Perhaps a few stimulating thoughts on forgiveness, mercy and love that we could all use.

Mom/LaWanda