Image of forgiveness

I have a friend who has been on quite a journey. For many years she has struggled with coming to terms with the abuse she suffered at her father's hands as a teenager. Over the years she has gone through many seasons of trying to come to terms with how to let it go.

You may be thinking that she has been harboring unforgiveness in her spirit and that's why she couldn't let go, but that's not the case. She has truly forgiven her father and loves him dearly.  What she was struggling with was the images that keep coming up in her mind when she thinks about him, and those images made it hard to forget. 

One day in prayer, she asked the Lord, "Father, help me to forget," for your word says that you remember not our sins and you have caste them as far as the east is from the west. On that day she looked at her father (his memory) and all she could see was the risen Christ standing before him with arms outstretched, saying, "don't look at him, look at me and what I did for him at the cross."

In that moment, a new peace came and she was able to forgive and forget!  What seemed so hard for so long, was now an easy peace.  You see, all she needed to do was to change the focus of the image to an image of forgiveness. 

I would encourage you today, if you too have been struggling to forgive and forget, to ask the Lord to show Himself to you in in a way that will be meaningful to you, and allow His Holy Spirit to show you  which image of Himself you need to see in order to forget. 

God is faithful and will answer your prayers.