I had a hard time sleeping last night. I woke up at about 3:30 and could not sleep. So I got up and went to the bathroom, and then got on the computer. I think at first I played some games, but then I got onto Bible Works. I was thinking about forgiveness - trying to forgive people I was mad at in the past. But wanting to see what the Lord has to say about forgiving. In English we tend to use just this one word - forgive - but in Scripture there are many words, and their meanings would surprise us. The basic idea is to let go, put aside, leave off. In other words, maybe to forget about it. You have "forgive" and "forget". "Give" and "get" are two different ideas. Two other words that come up are "mercy" and "grace". Now I know for sure that in one verse where we as English speakers take the idea of "forgive" seriously is:
Ephesians 2:8-9
"For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works,
so that no one may boast."
It's a free gift, and God's not taking it back if we don't behave ourselves. Even the faith is part of the free gift.
Now I'll admit that I had a lot more to think on forgiveness. There are of course other words for forgiveness. The main other word is ἀφίημι (aphiēmi), which is used by Jesus in the Lord's Prayer in:
Matthew 612: "And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors."
Basically we can say that this word forgive here means:
to send away, dismiss, set free. With Accusative of person, to express the discharge or acquittal of a defendant, whether the appellant is nonsuited by verdict or otherwise, especially to remit the punishment, where the guilty person is dealt with as if he were innocent.
Again we have the idea of a gift, a free gift I'd say. Giving to someone something they don't deserve. We ask God to freely forgive our offences, as we also freely forgive those who offend us. The word debts is a bit confusing. As a child I learned the word "trespasses". The word used by Jesus means that which is justly or legally due. Well immediately that brings to mind:
Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Just to give an idea of the origin this statement, I will suggest you look at Genesis 3. If Adam and Eve had not sinned in the Garden of Eden they would not have died, but would have lived forever with God. But God did promise to redeem man from this terrible fate. Again, in Romans 6:23, we have the free gift. But in the Lord's Prayer we are asking God to freely forgive us, as we freely forgive those who are in debt to us. Both of the forgive words in Matthew 6:12 are aorist active indicative. That would imply an on-going active event. I think one could translate the verse: "Be forgiving us our debts as we are forgiving our debtors." There's no imperative in the verse, no command.
Now I am quite certain that does not mean if someone owes us some money, because they borrowed it from us, that we don't ask them to pay it back. It has to do with forgiving someone who has offended us. But it certainly means that we are to be overlooking offenses against us. Now my question is this: Is this something mental or is it to be an outward act? I somehow think it is a personal thing. It seems right in line with something Jesus said:
Luke 6:29 "Whoever hits you on the cheek,
offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat,
do not withhold your shirt from him either."
If someone has offended me, and I say "You've offended me by doing such and such, but I'm going to forgive you." wouldn't I look like a self-righteous ------. But then on the other hand, what if someone knows that they've really offended me, then maybe I need to tell them that I forgive them so they don't feel so bad.
You know, this whole thing about forgiveness is really rather tricky. And as for me, the people who offended me in the past, and I'm still rather mad about it, I just really need to let it go, and know in my own heart that I've forgiven them, and ask God to help me let go of the anger. Some of the things are silly. Like when someone whose name I won't mention would never let me play baseball in grade school just because I wasn't that good. Well how are you going to get good if you can't play. But that's beside the point. I just need to forgive her, and let it go. And the same goes for all the other offenses. I have such a rediculously long memory.
"Dear Lord, please forgive me for hanging on to my anger or irritations for past offenses. Help me to just let go and forget all about them. Now that doesn't mean from chemo brain, of course. But to really let go of the anger, and to forgive. Those people all probably thought they were doing the right thing, even if I didn't think so. And in the big picture none of it really matters. I know Lord that everything is going according to Your plans, and You most certainly have everything under control. Thank You, Lord, for forgiving me."
Now I never did really get back to sleep. But I got in to bed an pretended for quite a while. Whatever I did, I did it slowly. Riley wanted me to get up and go for a walk with him, which was a very good idea. At some point though, I realized that I needed to wash my hair. When you've only got two more weeks to have you hair, you don't want it to look bad. So anyway, by the time I got ready, and sort of dried my hair - I didn't want to make it fall out any sooner than necessary - it was close to lunch time. So it was decided that we'd go have lunch at the Pearl Bakery. I had my usual ham and fontina sandwich, but this time there was no having any dessert, as yummy as it sounded. I knew that I would be having a little of Zac's birthday cake later on, even though I shouldn't.
Then we went to Powells for just a bit. I don't believe we bought anything. I kept saying to myself "Just read the books you have!" Then we walked over to the piano company and went in and I played on a whole lot of really expensive pianos. That was a lot of fun. We are talking REALLY EXPENSIVE. The one I liked the best cost only about $23,000, and believe it or not that was a low price. Then we went to the art store, because I told Riley that I wanted to paint. He bought me supplies for doing water colors. That's a medium I like. Oil takes me absolutely forever. I always like to paint red, and red takes longer than anything to dry. Then we walked back to the car and went home, where I took a short nap.
While I napped Riley went to the store to get the missing ingredients for Zac's cake. I made him a lemon pound cake with two areas of low sugar raspberry jam in the middle. I took about 1/4 cup low sugar raspberry jam and put it into a little glass dish and heated it just a bit in the micro-wave. Then I spooned 1/3 of the batter into the bundt pan, drizzled half the jam onto the batter, the 1/3 more batter, the rest of the jam, and the rest of the batter. Then I baked it for about 65 minutes. At that we dashed out for sushi for dinner, and got back with 25 minutes still remaining on the cake. When it had cooled 12 minutes I turned out the cake onto the cake platter, heated the lemon juice with 1/4 cup sugar, stirring to melt the sugar, poked lots of little holes in the cake, and then applied the lemon mixture with a pastry brush.
Then I sat down in the back room to watch the baseball game. As everyone began to arrive for the party they all seemed to gather in the back room, really close to where I was. That was nice. What a lovely family I have! But it was finally decided that it was time for the cake, so everyone and the presents reconvened in the dining room, which had been made very tidy by Riley. He's going to get an extra crown in heaven for all the work he's having to do. He had taken the leaves out of the table, so we all (12 of us) had to crowd around the table, making it even more fun.
I let Emily and Parker put the candles in the cake. Six in all. And then I recited the A. A. Milne poem "When I was six" to explain the number. Christian lit the candles, and Zac did a great job of blowing them out.
There was ice cream to go with the cake, and then the first present opened was from Corey, and super deluxe ice cream scoop with anti-freeze inside the scoop.
Everyone loved the cake, which was still slightly warm. And Stephane had three pieces. I love having a Frenchman eat three pieces of my cake!
Emily actually only played with her dessert. She doesn't really like very many sweet things, except licorice, chocolate, gummy worms, and spice drops. It was quite a juggling act. I even had to keep Parker supplied with raspberries. He told me he liked my cake.
Sarah
Zac and Christian
sleepy Caleb
I headed up to bed, because I was really really tired, and I had a bad sore throat. When Riley came up I asked if he would go get one of my Bibles, as I didn't have one on the third floor. Then I started to read about Ahaz and Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 28 and 29, and I asked Riley if he had some sore throat medicine, because he has lots of medicine. He thought surely he didn't, but he eventually found some, and it really did the trick. It actually wasn't medicine, it was just a reliever. This is because it was never going to be what cures my sore throat. Then I finished the story and was able to go to sleep on my back.
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