Why Should I Forgive?
By Jen Barrick
The drunk driver changed my life forever. He took a lot of things from me. He took my teenage years from me. He gave me a brain injury, and left me in a lot of pain. If you have been hurt by someone, you know that forgiveness is really hard. You can’t do it in your own strength. I had to pray and ask God to help me to forgive.
The reason I wanted to forgive was because I wanted to be free. I didn’t want anything to grow into bitterness and hinder my purpose. I didn’t want anything or anyone to consume my thoughts, but Jesus. Before I chose forgiveness, the drunk driver could hurt me emotionally again and again by controlling my thoughts. After I forgave, I finally felt free to use my story to make a difference in the world.
One thing that helps me is to visualize taking the drunk driver “off of my hook” and putting him on God’s hook. I no longer expect him to pay for what he did to me. I have given him to God. He’s on God’s hook. Jesus paid for what he did to me when he died on the cross.
Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” I had to remember all the times that God had forgiven me and given me grace. Knowing that I was forgiven, helped me make the choice to forgive. If you have never asked Jesus to forgive you, it will probably be impossible for you to forgive. You need His unlimited love and mercy to fix your heart before you can offer forgiveness to someone else.
Another thing that helped me was praying daily for the drunk driver. Bitterness cannot grow while you are praying for someone. When we don’t forgive, bitterness spreads in our hearts like a toxin. I wanted to be free of that, so I started to pray for my offender and asked Jesus to helped me forgive him.
in my situation, my offender was not physically able to say he was sorry or fix what he had done to me. He is still more injured than me. I decided to write him a letter and let him off my hook. I still have never talked to him, but I am free. Forgiveness does not mean that everything gets fixed perfectly. Forgiveness means that you are free to receive all the love and hope God has for you. One day everything will get fixed perfectly in heaven where there is no more sorrow or pain. Until then, we have forgiveness.