Forgiveness – Set Us Free like waterfalls flowing from the
Father’s Heart
I grew up a kid of divorce.
When I was nine my parents met with my brother and me separately and
told us they were not going to be living together any more. They were speaking
a foreign language; some kind of gibberish.
I remember lots of words but none of them made any sense. My parents did
split up. So my brother and I moved
across the U. S. to California back to Oceanside and grandma’s house.
Years later I was on a spiritual retreat at a Dominican
Monastery. Alone in my cell I decided to
“dedicate” all the relationships of my life to the Lord. One at a time, I went through the list. Soon I came to my mom. At that point in time I was living in
Southern California. I was a half-hour
from my mom’s home in Orange. Yet I had not seen her in years.
I was 29 and carrying 19 years of emptiness like it was part
of my body. Oblivious yet completely
aware, I avoided the pain associated with seeing my mom by not seeing her. Later I learned that the “cut off” was part
of my family story. It never left me,
the pain. It kept taking me over with
the passing days. Creeping inside and
building I pushed it down deeper believing it could be buried and lost
forever. This was my own personal lie and
coping mechanism. I was not really
dealing with it. Pushing it down was getting ride of it. The reality was as I pushed it down it
spread into other parts of me.
So, the Holy Spirit literally jumped me in the Dominican
Cell. About 60 days before my wife and I
would most likely leave town, he required my participation. When I started to dedicate my relationship
with my mom he spoke clearly. It was not
a literal voice in the air but a clear sense inside me. He said, “There is no going forward without addressing
this.”
The next few hours were an intense blur of tears, soul
confessions, and honest encounter with Jesus’ healing power. I wrote her a letter. It started with some serious asking. Asking for forgiveness. I wrote her a letter from each of the
significant perspective places of my young life. From the kid who did not understand anything
about “breaking up” and “not living together anymore”, I wrote from within the
confusion. From the twelve year old who
loved meeting her for a day of dawn patrol surfing along California’s coast
line, I wrote about the happiness of being with her. From the older high school student who
missed her and started entertaining anger as uncertainty, I wrote of a mixed up
empty place only she could fill. I
recognized the growing anger about how life was turning out. How more and more it gave way to frustration,
escape, drugs, drinking and sexual encounters. Vain attempts to silence the pain or fill the
void. I wrote from the college student
who felt the absence of her friendship as a soul ache. That’s when the deep pain inched its way up
into my heart. There were no answers for
the voice that called out to me. The
inner voice demanded an answer. It appeared I had to provide it. I never understood what to say. Then from the young man of 23 who loved
seeing her at my wedding. Brief but
happy, old thoughts and buried memories awoke again. Nothing came out that connected us from the
thousand words that brewed for years. That
brief moment lead into deeper isolation and the desire to simply “cut off” the
whole thing. All the hopes were boiling
up into a labyrinth of no escape.
Then the Spirit grabbed me and isolated me in a cell at a
Dominican Monastery for a confrontation.
Captured in the day of reckoning
with God. Twenty nine years, alone in
the quiet place, God took hold of me and lead me to a way out. I wrote. I confessed.
I recognized the seasons and all the pain. The Spirit walked me through it all. Step by step he showed me what I had held
deep inside. He led me to repent. He led me to the Father’s heart. He led me to peal back the pain, to take it
apart, to see it all. He walked with me
through it all both then and now. I
wrote the letter with many tears. It
spanned years of different perspectives and reactions.
I finished sometime in the afternoon.
The Lord said, “Now send it to her”.
The monastery was in the high desert east of L.A. I took my beach guitar and headed out to
celebrate. Somewhere in the evening hues
of the L.A. desert, I danced and sang and wrote new songs. The freedom of forgiveness flooded me with
celebration! I could taste the
forgiveness and love flowing into those pain-ridden dungeons wave after wave
after wave. Worship erupted from my body, soul, mind and
spirit. The Spirit marked me deeply with
a new worship and connection.
My mom received the letter a few days later. I was speaking out of town. She called my wife and together they cried
away years of emptiness.
The Spirit wrote on me that day. He showed me the power of forgiveness. Like an earthquake in the soul, when it
shakes everything cracks open and spills out.
Love spills in.
Forgiveness is like a waterfall on the soul, mind, heart and
spirit. Rooted in the perfect work of
Jesus.
Ideas? Comments? Thoughts?
Please share what the Spirit has done in you.
Thank you for reading
Brother Jeff
Jeff Reynolds. Sr. Leader
Capstone Christian Fellowship
