Stones... (Forgive us our debts...)

"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" -Matthew 6:12

"7 times 70 times. There's healing in the air tonight. I'm reaching up to pull it down. Gonna wrap it all around" -Chris August

Stones and rocks can be really heavy, especially when we spend weeks, months, even years carrying them. And when your hands are busy holding onto rocks, it gets pretty difficult to grab onto anything else.

Jesus once met some people with stones in their hands. They were ready to stone a woman caught in adultery! And here's the crazy part, as far as they were concerned, it was what they were SUPPOSED to be doing. "It's what Moses to do to such women," they shouted. But let's set the scene a bit better...

The story tells us that while teaching in the temple courts, the priests brought in a woman caught in adultery. After hearing someone talk about it, I imagine this meant they pulled her FROM the act itself, naked and totally ashamed. So they stood her in front of Jesus and explained the situation and why she should be stoned to death. "What do you say?" they asked. At this Jesus did something strange. He bent over and started drawing with his finger in the dirt.

So they kept asking him with anger pouring from their lips. And after tuning it out for long enough, he slowly stood up, asked the crowd, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Then he went right be down to his drawing! One by one, they began to drop their stones and walked off, until it was just Jesus and the woman left. Then he said something amazing!

"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir."

"Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."

He stood there and offered her a fresh start, a new life. He didn't condemn her as the law of Moses had called for. He didn't stone her. He blotted out all the anger of the crowd and offered her renewal and forgiveness.

We all have people in our lives that there is tension with, people who have hurt us. Sometimes they are people who have done things we just can't let go of. Maybe it's a parent who failed to love us. Maybe it's a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse who has cheated or lied. Maybe it's a friend who has talked behind our back. No matter their story, we all have stones with specific people's names on them. We have people we just can't forgive.

But if God can forgive and redeem and restore a naked woman pulled out of a bed committing adultery and he can forgive me, with all of the hurts I have committed and all of the sin that comes between him and me, then I'm positive He can forgive the people who have hurt me and the people who have hurt you.

I've seen those people in my life. That's why I've sent some of the most loving e-mails I've ever written to Glynis Bethel over the past few months (to understand this, just visit susanleathers.com.) That's why I've started to pray for the people who have hurt me the most over the past few weeks. Because life is so much more beautiful and wonderful when our hands aren't full of stones we could drop whenever we're ready. Because God is ready to heal the wounds that have left us scarred and to restore us where we've fallen short. Because it's so much easier to embrace each other when our hands aren't clinched around stones but around our brothers and sisters...

 As a related aside, I've had this song on repeat for the last week. I heard it live last Thursday and have not been able to get it out of my head. For anybody fighting to forgive, to let go of those stones, particularly when it is our families that have hurt us, this is for you.

forever unfinished...