Mercy Mercy Mercy

Some random thoughts on suffering, mercy, forgiveness, and being flawed.

• The saints still had joy, even when being persecuted. I think this is because they didn't sit and think about how they were feeling due to someone else's action, but how the other person was feeling--even if the other person was being a jerk. This has always been hard for me, as I have been trained to think of whether I am being appreciated, or whether I am being treated right. I had a rough time with someone who is very close to me. I spent a half an hour helping this person, and when we finished, the person just walked away, still as bitter and angry as before we started. I thought, "Jesus, help me. This person is hurting me so much. I just spent this time being so kind and trying so hard, and I didn't even get to hear a thank you." Jesus smiled at me as I watched the person walk away, and I heard him say: "This is true, but hear it from me: Thank you for serving me through this person."
• This must be how the saints can do it: Jesus' thanks is worth more than the most grateful friend, and somehow it is better to serve an ungrateful person, because then we can only be doing the good thing for Jesus-since we are not repaid, even by gratitude.
• I've had a few conversations with friends this week about forgiveness, and how forgiveness is not FOR the other person. Letting it go, giving up your right to be angry, and never demanding your right to be apologized to is not something we do FOR someone else, but something for ourselves. If someone else holds the power to make me unhappy until THEY apologize or make up for what they did, I am not free! So forgiveness is really the way that I release myself from bondage to bad feeelings. "You did a terrible thing, but I forgive you."
• Mercy builds relationships, sometimes. I just said that forgiveness is for me more than it is for someone else, but really, it is also a gift to another person. When someone does something terrible and I forgive him or her, that person received a gift of mercy where he or she rightfully deserved wrath. That gift can make another person a better person, if they accept that they did something evil and have been granted mercy for it.
• Forgiveness without apology first mirrors God's relationship to us. When Jesus died on the cross, his death obtained the forgiveness of every sin that was ever committed and every sin that will ever be committed. God doesn't hold grudges. But, the same as with our relationships with each other, just because I forgive you doesn't mean that our relationship is repaired and reconcilied. In order for that to happen, especially in the case of something BIG, it is required that another person ask forgiveness and do his or her best to make up for what he or she did. But, and this is an important realization for me: my peace cannot be subject to another person's decision to be (or not to be) sorry.
• And the last thought for the day: If I cannot forgive, I cannot be forgiven. Jesus taught his disciples to pray by saying to God, Our Father: "Forgive us, as we forgive others." I know I don't deserve to be forgiven: "If you O Lord, mark iniquities, who could stand?" But I know that I do things to my friends that hurt them, even if I feel that they hurt me way more. My God has never done anything evil to me, and I can't say to him: I grant you mercy, so you must grant it to me. He deserves perfection from me, and I fail! In sheer gratitude for the mercy I have been shown, I may not demand perfection or even restitution from others... But it's so hard!!!!!!!!

Lord, give us the strength to live with forgiveness of spirit, merciful hearts, and humility, that we may live with JOY, PEACE, and HAPPINESS in our difficult lives. AMEN.