Draw Me Close

So last night i went with a friend from work to this meet up group where we discussed forgiveness. I loved the experience, and I long for more experiences like this. Sitting around the table in the tiny room at JJBean was such a diverse array of people. Like I said the subject was forgiveness and everyone had thoughts, questions, experiences that they came ready to share.

Now i've been in these sort of conversations before, but they've always been with Christians, or in Christian environments. And as I'm listening to everyone wrestle with what forgiveness is and what forgiveness expects... or does it expect anything, God wasn't mentioned once. But you know what, even in the mention of the word, I felt Him there. I felt him in the gentleman who couldn't get the words out of what happened to him, but the fact that he was considering forgiveness. I felt him in the girl who was nearly killed a couple of months ago by a man she was dating who was beginning to live again by forgiving. I felt him as the woman wrestled with not wanting to forgive, but hearing the hope and life that comes from it.

We all did an exercise where we read out loud something we had written to someone who had hurt us and we were working on forgiving. I talked about how my dad made me feel when he left and found a new family, i talked about how it made me doubt a lot of my childhood, and how it made me so insecure in all of and any of my relationships. I talked about cutting another one of the strings that binds me to him, I talked about forgiving even if he doesn't change, and taking back hope and living and loving and giving of myself to those I love and trust.

After we wrapped everything up the oldest gentleman in the room, probably in his mid-fifties- who had talked about how he had left his wife and children for something different and how he misses them and wishes he hadn't made that mistake, walked up to me. This very moment was one of the most beautiful things i've experienced here in Vancouver. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry". Oh Jesus, thank you for being there in this man. I think it was something he needed to say to his family, who i represented, and the exact thing i needed to hear from my dad, who he represented. He went on to say I deserve happiness and encouraged me to keep on this path of forgiveness.

I know this experience is something that will stay with me forever, I know God is using it in my life as i daily choose to forgive others. It brings me to tears how present He was there, how He held an alter call in my heart in this very secular conversation. I believe more than anything that last night each of us in that room were being drawn closer and closer to Him... without even saying His name. Oh Jesus, thank you.