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A lesson in forgiveness
My wife and I were preparing to go out. During the course of getting ready I acted in a more self-centered manner than I would have wished. This resulted in a pointed rebuke from my wife and I reacted badly. I thought, “I may not have been quite in order, but surely nothing I did deserved a rebuke.” I felt absolutely furious but continued to say nothing.
My wife and I then left to begin our journey to Central London, where we were to attend a talk for the public on Christian Science, which was being organized to coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The journey involved travel by car, train, and the underground. When we arrived at the railway station, I was still very unhappy but was endeavoring as best as I could to find my peace and let go of the bitterness I was feeling. As I was sitting quietly on my own, waiting for the train, thinking all this through, and praying to find some peace, completely out of the blue came the words “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). I immediately recognized them as being part of Christ Jesus’ instruction to his disciples when he was asked by Peter how many times he should forgive a brother who had sinned against him. I thought to myself, “Seventy times seven. That is nearly 500 times. Wow! That’s a tremendous amount of forgiving.” My next thought was, “Well, I can certainly forgive my wife.” With that, the feelings of bitterness, resentment, and anger that had been bothering me instantly vanished.
It was quite remarkable. There was no lengthy prayer involved. One moment I was angry and disturbed; the next moment, having glimpsed the need for forgiveness and that this was something I was capable of doing, I realized that the bitterness and resentment were totally gone. At that point the train to London came in. I rejoined my wife and we continued on our journey with a quiet peace and sense of harmony.
I was endeavoring as best as I could to let go of the bitterness.
Later that same day, while having a light snack just before the talk, my wife and I met a man who was clearly deeply troubled and going through hard times. As we shared a lunch table with him, I thought to myself, “Surely here is someone who would deeply benefit from attending this upcoming talk.” However, he avoided any eye contact, and my wife and I ended up leaving without speaking with him.
As I was crossing the road to the venue for the talk I thought to myself, “You have got to go back and talk to that man.” I did. I explained very briefly the reason for my being there, handed over a flyer for the talk, and pointed out the venue on the other side of the road. Imagine my joy when just before the talk started, the man walked in. After the conclusion of the talk he accepted an invitation to have a word with the speaker. Later on that afternoon he visited the nearby Christian Science Reading Room close to the Olympic festivities.
I am deeply convinced that I would neither have met the man nor felt the Christly affection and tenderness to invite him to the talk if I had not had the beautiful experience of love and forgiveness at the railway station earlier in the day. I also later learned that my wife had been totally unaware of the impact of her comments, and she didn't realized I had been so unhappy.
That fact helped me once again see more clearly that we are always dealing with our own consciousness and that when we turn away from self, we will invariably find peace and an opportunity to be kind towards someone else.