Shortly after I travelled for a conference, I received a letter from a woman who shared with me how the message I spoke resonated with her own personal journey. The message I had prepared for the final session on the Sunday morning was about the forging we must endure as we walk out our spiritual journey.

When we come to accept Christ, there will comes times of forging that we will endure during our journey. Forging is a process involving the shaping of metal using the heat of compressive forces. We, as God’s children, are akin to the metal for we are God’s instruments to share the Gospel of Jesus to a broken and dying world. But in order for us to be strengthened and used to our greatest ability, we must first be forged by the heat. The heat used to compress us is the trials we face in this life. We are not immune to these trials but given the promise that God will bring good out of our suffering.

To be indifferent to the forging is to be forged by the enemy. As Christ-followers, he cannot take from us what God has given, but he will work hard to cause us harm. One of his greatest tactics is beat us down enough that we become forged as fraudulent versions of the person Christ desires us to be. He wants to distract us from Jesus having us believe that we are worthless and our pain is because of that unworthiness. Condemnation and fear are his greatest weapons against us.

The letter detailed a childhood riddled with abuse. Her father had suffered from an addiction that left both she and her siblings with memories filled with pain. Years later, as she grew into adulthood pursuing her faith on a more personal level, she wrote her father a letter releasing him from the abuse he inflicted upon their family. Upon receiving her letter, he realized it was glimpse of hope for his life.

The wicked should stop doing wrong, and they should stop their evil thoughts. They should return to the Lord so he may have mercy on them. They should come to our God, because he will freely forgive them.
Isaiah 55:7

By her prayers and obedience, her father came to a place where he surrendered to Jesus. The healing in his broken soul had begun. But it was the raw honesty of her confessed emotions that revealed what true forgiveness looks like: it is not a sweep-it-under-the-rug-and-let-it-be-forgotten kind of thing. It’s a day-by-day, moment-by-moment, kind of thing. Each and every day she makes the choice to forgive and show love by her actions.

And let us remember the truth that Jesus is not ignorant to the difficulties of forgiveness. He understands that sometimes there are situations in life that are harder to forgive than others. Situations that are greater than stealing twenty dollars from a purse but stealing the innocence from a soul. Yes, the actions of those who have wronged us will be judged justly by the God we serve, but our actions of obedience will be as well… every day when we make a most difficult choice not to fraudulent in our faith.

Father, sometimes life delivers the most unfair and hideous blows that a soul must endure. But you know the difficulties far to well. When forgiveness is hard, and emotions are raw, help us to see your hand at work within it all. In Jesus name, amen.