We have met with a few other families that we had shunned when they left to ask their forgiveness. We asked forgiveness for our part in their leaving and our part in not keeping an open friendship with them. They were so gracious to us, to me. Not one of them was prideful. Not one of them thought that their “rightness” was a thing to be proud of. They all loved the people and leaders in the CLB. Had they always walked in this grace and never said anything bitter or spiteful about the church? Probably not. But they were full of grace when we met with them. We fell into a family of believers who really loved us and wanted whatever God wanted for us. No one pressured us to join their thing. Each of them gave us wide berth to find what God had for us. It was truly amazing.
By the way, all of them saw the same problems with the CLB that we had come to see. We had no idea though. We were given various reasons by the leadership of why these people had left. As we met with these families though, the reasons they said they gave for leaving were not the ones we had heard. They were the very same reasons we had left.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Forgiveness Recieved
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3 comments:
What an awesome example! Thank you for sharing how you sought forgiveness from those in the church that you shunned. Thank you also for sharing their example of forgiveness.
-Alan
It is their example that has blown me away. They should have spit on my shoes and thrown me out. But they have shown love and compassion instead.
I have many more to go.
Former leader
We have found this to be true as well. God has brought restoration to several friendships that had left previously. Hearing their stories now is really freaky… how similar their reasons were, what they saw very early on, while I was still very blinded. For the most part, they have been very understanding, and full of love toward us. It has been a blessing of grace, covering my soul and warming me to know the very fullness of their forgiveness and that they had held no ill will or bitterness toward us - they had simply moved on at the time, and had been blacklisted, so they had kept their distance. As have we, since we left, with those who had remained at the time.
We know that many rumors were started about us, so we’re never quite sure what to expect when we run into someone we haven’t seen since then. It’s hard to know how friendly to be… we don’t want to offend someone who really doesn’t want to see us. For the record, I've posted on my blog several times to anyone who desires to re-establish relationship with us… our door is always open.
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