I AM FORGIVEN

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“I’m not in love with you anymore!” she said, while we stood in the kitchen.

“Huh?”

Brilliant retort I know but it’s all I could come up with at the time.

I didn’t know what to say and I had to lean on the center island before I fell down. I couldn’t believe that she told me she didn’t have those in-love feelings for me anymore and that she was leaving. It was out of the blue. It was over.

Here I was, newly divorced and coming from a 42 year marriage. What was I going to do with all the despair I was feeling? What was I to do with all the emptiness, the regret, the guilt, and the shame I had for letting down my wife, family, and God? I had feelings of what could have been? I hadn’t even got to the sick and nauseating feeling in my stomach yet or the sense of failure I had in my gut. I’d just lost my identity, my role, my purpose in life, and my wife.

I was so ashamed that I couldn’t even talk to God. I was really concerned about what God thought about me. I felt condemned because I was a Christian man who was supposed to be the spiritual leader of his home. This was not supposed to be happening. I’d failed God. . .again.

We had been down this road before because this was the third time at the lawyer’s office. The first time we’d been to the lawyers, we stopped the divorce before it became final. A few years later, the second time, we’d divorced for three years but in the meantime, she accepted Christ. Because of the kids and holidays, we began dating again and the Lord got us back together. We remarried.

Given everything we’d been through, the Lord prompted me to write a book on our testimony. I spent three years writing that book and finally published it. I was on the top of the world. God had saved my marriage, gave me the ministry of writing for Him, which gave me a testimony. This all meant a great deal to me, as I didn't really think that I had a testimony with which to brag on God when I evangelized for the Lord. (I had a lot to learn.)

Yet, there I sat at the lawyer’s office for the third time. I’d lost everything, my wife, my home, my testimony. . .everything. We divorced.

It’s been five years now and I am OK. I still think about how I let down and failed God from time to time but most of the time I can shake it off because I know where the condemnation comes from.

For example, one week ago I was watching “Touching Lives” and at the end of the program, my favorite guy came on. . .Max Lucado. He talked about the many times we want to say something -- but we can’t. I was having that trouble that night as I sat and watched the tube trying to get some encouragement. I had been praying but nothing was coming, until. . .

Max talked about the business man who just lost his job and wanted to be able to say that he was successful at his work. . .but he couldn’t. Or how the divorced person wished he could say that they had a happy marriage. . .but couldn’t. He spoke of the barren couple who wanted to say how great it was to have children running around the house. . .but they couldn’t. Or the man who was just diagnosed with cancer wishing he could say that he was healthy. . .but he couldn’t.

I immediately thought about how I wished I could say that I had had a happy marriage. . . but couldn’t. I wanted to be able to say that I hadn’t ever let down God. . .but I couldn’t. I wished I could say that I have a testimony. . .but I couldn’t. I’d lost mine.

Then in true MAX Lucado fashion, he gave his take-away from the little sermonette and said, “Of the many things that we can’t say, there is one thing that we can say with confidence; if we’ve placed our faith in Jesus Christ, ‘We are forgiven’”

I was in such a state, I couldn’t hold back. I sat there in my living room in the wee hours of the morning, bawling my eyes out like a little baby as I raised my hands to Christ and thanking him passionately. Through my sobs, I felt as though God had sent that message directly to me through Max Lucado, telling me that I had a testimony. . .”You are forgiven!” I'd had that testimony all along.

“Hallelujah, I am forgiven! Thank you Jesus for loving me and never leaving me no matter what I do. Thank you for you and for my testimony!”

So, if anyone out there who is reading this feels like they either do not have a testimony or feel that they’ve lost one because of a similar trauma in their lives, you can use mine. There is enough of Christ to go around. Come to or back to Jesus and be forgiven. He will never divorce you.

v5 . . .I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee [Hebrews 13:5].

v35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
v38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
V39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord [Romans 8: 35, 38, 39].

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