Facing Your Giants

One of my friends, Lisa Q., gave me a book for Christmas called FACING YOUR GIANTS written by Max Lucada. Grasp would not be a word that I would use to describe this well-known and prolific author. His words or ideas don't demand a rabid concentration or having a dictionary close at hand to check every sentence. It is easy reading. Since Karl Barth is a little out of my concentration, at this point, I picked up the book again.

I thumbed through the index--saw nothing on forgiveness--and then flipped through the book, landing on Chapter Six "Grief Givers". This 8 page chapter culminates in a mini-lesson where forgiveness is mentioned a few times. The chapter starts with the story of the tree which survived the bombing in Oklahoma City. The bombing stripped her of her branches but she endured and came out leafing again. Thus, people trek to see the tree now which is known as the Survivor tree. I wonder if they are seeking reassurance that they, too, can survive an emotional bombing.

I liked one paragraph and would not change a word. It says what I want to say and want to hear:

Forgiveness is, at its core, choosing to see your offender with different eyes. When some Moravian missionaries took the message of God to the Eskimos, the missionaries struggled to find a word in the native language for forgiveness. They finally landed on this cumbersome twenty four letter choice: issumagijoujungnainermik. This word is literally translated, "not being able to think about it anymore."

I can't imagine anyone who has dealt the way I have with severed relationships who wouldn't give her eyeteeth to have all memory of that relationship sucked out of her brain, nevermore to have to deal with it. But that person still lives rent-free and lands at the most inopportune times.

What is forgiveness? Lucado says it is moving on, you don't think about the offense anymore. You see your enemy as God's child and revenge as God's business. I'm not there yet. I have not relinquished revenge as God's job only. I think that one reason I have severed relationships is that is the only revenge I still have.

Lucado leaves the chapter with the question: "Dare we ask God for grace when we refuse to give it?" I have to think about this.