TESTIMONY AND TRUTH

Testimony by Amanda Klos

Yesterday at 10:12pm

This semester in my English class I chose to write a personal essay on what I call a testimony of God teaching me to forgive and forget. The essay is pretty long, which I will include at the end. As I was writing it, and even afterward, God taught me a part of his character at a deeper level. We know that when we ask God to forgive our sins he forgives them. Most of you have heard the quote, "forgive and forget." I've heard many people claim before that they just cannot forget that easily when they have been hurt. They will forgive, but they will never forget.

The Bible tells us that God forgets our sins when we ask for forgiveness.! To forget is defined as to remember no more or to dismiss from the memory. Yes that is right, he remembers them NO MORE! God CHOOSES not to dwell on the sin we have done! Here is the proof...

“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins." Isaiah 43:25
“For I will be merciful to their iniquities,And I will remember their sins no more.” Hebrew 8:12
“And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” -Hebrew 10:17

My friend Chantel taught me awhile ago that when we hold people to who they used to be, something they did, something that they have asked for forgiveness, we are not allowing them to grow! Now would it be fair if God said he forgave us but continued to remember our sin? By remembering our sin he is holding us accountable to what we have done. There is no room to grow because basically he would constantly be reminded of who we were and all of our failures. God knows us inside out, that is no doubt! He knows all of our flaws and weaknesses. But God desires us to be new creations--someone he can mold and shape into who he desires to be! Someone who does not live marked by a life of sin and unforgiveness. So instead, he chooses to forget our sins. He chooses to allow us to grow instead of holding us into a place where we can never be overcomers!

I'm overwhelmed by God's forgiveness. His unending Grace that has no limits! We can freely ask for his forgiveness and he freely gives. What a wonderful God who does not hold us to a place of failure!

On an ending note, when you ask God to forgive you, he has forgiven you. He does not hold that sin against you--he remembers it no more! Its true that the hardest person to forgive is always yourself. If you have asked God for forgiveness, he has forgiven you. Always forgive yourself or else you will hold yourself back from truly growing and maturing into whom you're supposed to be!

Here is my essay: The title is "Seven times Seventy; Always"

The life of a Christian is one marked by forgiveness. Jesus Christ has commanded us to continually forgive others because he has forgiven us. The world is full of sinners, who have not only broken their relationship with God, but will continue to live a life that is full of broken relationships, unless they accept God’s offering of forgiveness.

No human being is perfect; not even a Christian. A Christian is one whom God is continually working on to bring to a place of perfection. There are many trials that a person faces in life that will better their character. Trials that have been overcome will testify of what God has done in a person’s life and will reveal that they are not the same person they were before. This is my testimony of learning what it truly means to forgive and forget.

Echo Grove was the campground where I met Colin at. He lived in Pennsylvania, and I lived in Michigan. Our friendship was built on interactions during the first week of August every year and through e-mails and online chatting during the months in between each summer. Secretly I had formed a crush on him over the years, and finally, after spending our seventh week of the summer together, he realized he liked me too. That November afternoon felt as if it came too soon for me as Colin decided to end our relationship after only a few short months of courting.

To an outsider I was just another girl whose heart was breaking over a boy. What hurt the most was that our eight years of friendship seemed to have been washed away as he pierced my heart with reasons why we wouldn’t work out. Words cut deeply and even more deeply when the words continue to consume your mind. Depression sank in for at least six months as I dwelt on the reasons why I was not good enough for him.

Time doesn’t wait for pain to cease; it continues to go on as the wound heals. A year and a half later, I found myself at Echo Grove’s Campground sitting on a wooden bench around what would be a campfire during the night hours. The August sun shone down on me as I sat in solitude waiting for the campers to come find me as they participated in an initiative called “The Burden Search.” Five counselors, myself included, sat in different locations on the campground as the campers searched for us to receive a question which they would answer in quietness before the cross at the waterfront.

As I waited to be found, I focused on answering the questions for myself as they were meant to search my soul. My pastor instructed us not to go to our heads for the answers but to allow God to reveal the answers to us. The first question on the burden list was “What is the one thing that has hurt you the most in your life and how did you react to that hurt?”

I knew the answer right away, and I neither had to wait for God to show me the answer nor did I have to write it down on paper. I had dealt with that hurt and had forgiven Colin already. I decided I could easily move on to the rest of the questions. Forgive and forget, right? So why dwell on it?

Colin was here again this summer at camp and recently engaged to a girl back home. Later that afternoon, after the initiative of questions, Colin asked me to talk with him. As we sat across the picnic table from one another he looked me deeply in the eyes and asked me if everything was okay between us. It was as if he was searching down into my soul for the truth. Something I had not allowed God to do earlier. My eyes had to turn away because I knew right then that everything wasn’t okay. I thought I had forgiven him for all the hurt he caused me, but the question, “How did you react to the hurt” came creeping in. Instead, I lied to him and said everything was good on my end between us. Colin spoke from his heart as he told me that his high school ring that he gave me a few years ago still meant something to him. That ring represented our friendship that he wanted to have for life and he didn’t want any awkwardness between us.

Heaviness hung on my heart for the rest of the afternoon and it carried into the evening. I was still reacting to the hurt, and my reactions were hurting our friendship. It was hurting Colin and I was not letting life flow. Our friendship wasn’t dead, but it could be described as lame or asleep. Our friendship was awkward. We couldn’t talk like friends because I was holding on to something he had said to me when we broke up: “Our minds don’t connect and we don’t laugh at the same things.” These were two of his reasons for breaking up.

The months following that November night I felt very stupid. The image of not being smart enough crept into my relationships with other people and affected me on another level. During conversations with other people I would be reminded of the phrase “our minds don’t connect” when I was unsure of what a person was talking about. I would not ask for clarity because I didn’t want the person to think I was stupid because I didn’t understand.

A few weeks after we had broken up Colin apologized for the way he treated me at the end of our relationship and I had willingly forgiven him. But he didn’t know that I allowed his reasons for breaking up to cut me so deeply. I never shared with him how his words hurt me because I didn’t know how to express my feelings to him. A year after our breakup I decided to forgive him without telling him how he hurt me. I thought I had forgiven him for the words that stung my heart, but in reality it was putting up a wall in our friendship.

I had not forgotten the hurt, which was a constant reminder that I had not truly forgiven him. Part of me had no desire to talk to him. That wall was telling me that he was too smart for me and that we couldn’t carry a conversation. It was a lie I had let myself believe. A truth I have come to know is that Jesus is the giver of life while the devil comes to destroy life. The devil wants us to be dead in areas and not reconciled to God or others. When there is life, God is praised.

That night at camp we wrote our burdens down on a piece of paper and burned them outside underneath the night sky. My first step in truly forgiving Colin was truly forgiving him without him asking. By burning that burden I was choosing to forget the words that hurt me. To forget means to dismiss from the mind or to stop remembering. I was choosing to dismiss the words “our minds don’t connect” from my mind whenever I saw or thought about Colin.

I am awful at letting a person know that they hurt me especially when they don’t realize the extent of my hurting. The following night after burning that burden, I chose to share with Colin what God had revealed to me and that I had truly forgiven him. As we walked back and forth down the dirt road tears filled my eyes. It was a challenge for me to share with him how his words had hurt me and that I felt stupid around him. But it was a challenge I took because I wanted our friendship to have life and to be marked by one of encouragement.

Apologizing for holding a grudge all this time without him knowing brought so much freedom to our friendship. Colin did not realize the extent of my hurt and chose to apologize for words that came out wrong. His words of truth overpowered the lie I chose to believe for almost two years. Colin encouraged and reminded me that we’ve always had good conversations and that I was smart.

It’s amazing how God doesn’t give up on us and continues to bring us to a place of wholeness. Prior to this week at camp I was sure that I had forgiven Colin. But God knew my heart better than I, and didn’t want to let me stay in a place of unforgiveness. I learned not only to truly forgive Colin but also to let go of this idea of not being smart. It brought freedom in my conversations with others by being humble enough to communicate when I don’t understand what they are talking about.

I will never regret dating Colin and the hurt that followed. No one in this life is exempt from heartache and misery. We are all given the opportunity to choose life by forgiving the person who causes the hurt. Because God has forgiven me, and asked me to forgive seven times seventy, I too will continue to offer forgiveness.

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"Heart Thought by Amanda Klos"

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