Because maybe, maybe, if forgiveness had been the only thing
on the table, I might have been willing to oblige a bit easier. I
did, in fact, at His insistence, forgive her. In my mind at least.
Set her free from the debt I thought she owed me for making me
feel so awful, so uneasy, for so long. I thought the Lord, seeing
my sincerity in drawing up an internal declaration of
forgiveness toward her, might cut me some slack and just
forget the other part. You know, that part about offering
comfort... to her?
But under the circumstances, under the specifics of His
conviction, I knew He wanted more. He wanted me to show
comfort to this one who had offended me. This was the only
way I could be “obedient in everything”... in this thing. And I
knew it. No, my flesh didn’t want to give this person the time of
day, much less the dignity of a response. But my resistance to
what God’s Word and command were saying clued me in
beyond any doubt that I’d allowed a root of bitterness to
spring up within my heart. And it was choking out some stuff I
missed and that really mattered to me. And this was the part
that was by demonic design.
So finally, one sunny day, I took my forgiveness over to her
house in the form of a little meal I’d prepared. We talked. We