What are they doing here?!!!

On to the next major event of equal importance. I will not use names as all these people are alive and known. We had started going to our new church and I saw someone I thought I recognized. They were a friend of a family member that was involved in my divorce. Wow I bet it just got silent. Yes I am divorced. So lets take a short recess. I do not believe in divorce I do not believe it is biblical in fact Jesus clearly states in Mark 10:5 "because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept". So because of our hard hearts. I also believe it takes two. It takes two to make a marriage work and it takes two to make a marriage fail. Right? Wrong! It takes two to make it fail it takes three to make it work. You must have God in your relationship. You must have a guideline a ruler a standard and that is the Love that God is. 1 Cor 13:4 - 7says

⁴Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud⁵or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.⁶It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.⁷Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Enough said.

So for the sake of ease lets call the woman Jane and the man John. Jane and John were firends of my family member we will call him Ralph. Ralph came to town and within 7 months I was terminated and kicked out of my house. Did I do things wrong? Yes I definately did. So what then was the problem. I trusted this person with information. I told Ralph things that no one else knew. When I got fired my boss knew things that Ralph knew. He also counselled my wife at the time and told her it was her right to divorce me. Ralph to this day thinks he did nothing wrong. I thought that I had put all this behind me. It was 10 myears ago. That I had dealt with my divorce and all the ugliness and moved on. That is until I saw John and Jane. I made the connection. Jane was talking to my wife. When we got home her and I talked Jane started putting pieces together and said oh so you're Darryls son's stepmom and so on. I was mad, wy did they have to be here. Of all the churches and they have only been there for a little over 2 years. Why this church, why now? It was all ruined!! Then I realized I had not dealt with anything I just pushed it under a rug 10 years prior and now it was all coming out. I hated. I hated them all. They lied they were deceitful they hurt me they..it didn't matter. What mattered was what was I going to do. Would I be obedient to my God who gave his son for me and then he forgave me for being responsible for killing his own son. 

I was still having my quiet time and in the word as well as listening to CD's. Well over the next month not everyday but in close proximity to each other the cd I listened to and the book I was reading in addition to the Bible and the sermon on Sunday were all in the same area. Forgiveness, repentance, regardless of what the other person believes or does we are to forgive. Then It moved into loving those around us not with our love but the love of God. He can love through us if we allow him to. How? By being immersed in his word and in his presence. By believing that his words are true, by faith. I was freed from my hatred and anger. It still makes me uncomfortable to think about and thats ok. If you got into a car accident would it be something you would want to think about? No! The rage and hate are gone and I have forgiven and expressed love and release. I didn't feel the vistory right away but I claimed it right away and I stood on it. How can we expect to be forgiven if we do not forgive.

Love one another as I have loved you - God