A Journey of Forgiveness

What do I know about forgiveness?
   
Enough to know that it isn’t easy. Enough to know that it is a process. And enough to know what it is not.
 
I was raised to know the importance of forgiveness. It was an easier principle to put into practice as long as I was in the loving home of my childhood. However, as an adult, I have had more reasons to forgive and more years to face its challenges. When it comes to forgiveness, I’ve lived it, accepted it, given it, and messed it up.
 
It has been decades ago, but I will never forget the feeling I had when I first realized forgiveness would be a constant presence in my life. I’ll never forget where I was sitting. The way the air felt. The feeling that the bottom had just dropped out of my world. The knowledge that things would never be the same. 
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My husband--the love of my life, the man I saved myself for, the only man I had ever known in the Biblical sense--had just told me that he had “known” another woman. Not just any woman. A close friend.

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Unsplash

He cried. He was SO sorry. He begged my forgiveness.
  
God did a healing in our marriage.
 
I did not believe in divorce. However, I did believe in forgiveness. He promised it would never happen again. He told me if I really had forgiven him, I would not talk about it or bring it up.
   
Then a few years later, it happened once again. Again, he begged my forgiveness. By then, we had a precious baby girl and pastored a large church. Again, he begged me to tell no one.
   
We went to six months of marriage counseling which resulted in his promise that it would never happen again--and a promise from me that if it did, I would leave. We stayed together and had another precious baby girl.
 
God did another healing in our marriage.
 
Two years later, he confessed to me that he had been involved in three additional affairs over the period of one year. Once again, he begged my forgiveness and wanted to stay together and work it out.
 
Something inside me broke. I was done. Done covering up. Done having my heart torn to shreds. The divorce was difficult with years of drama and pain.
  
So you may ask, what do I know about forgiveness? 

1. I know that forgiveness is not sweeping issues under the carpet. Secrets cause sickness. If not dealt with and brought into the light, they will continue to grow in the dark.  

1. I know that forgiveness is not feeling like someone owes you or needs to pay you back for how they have wronged you. For years I said I had forgiven, I gave testimonies about how I had forgiven. However, deep in my heart I was still waiting for the day my husband would pay me back for all he had stolen from my life. I know now that it is not until we release a person from “owing us” that we can completely forgive them. 

1. I know that the main reason we need to forgive is because Christ forgave us. Forgiveness does not make any sense unless you first realize that you are a forgiven person. 

We cannot balance the scales. Forgiveness means the scales are forever out of balance.  It means that one person is always going to owe a debt. It’s only when we forgive the debt that we can heal. 

Several years ago, after we had both remarried and re-established our lives, a deep healing came. As we sat visiting on the front porch after he had visited our daughters, I shared with him that although the intellectual decision to forgive him had been made years ago, only recently had I felt that I had emotionally forgiven him. I told him he did not owe me anything and I wanted him to know that I released him to be happy and free in his life. He in turn asked my forgiveness. This time there was such a feeling of peace. I am so grateful the Lord allowed us to have this conversation, because he tragically died two months later. 

What do I know about forgiveness? 

​I know that forgiveness allows you to put the pain and hurt behind you, release it, and move beyond the hurt and heal. With all we have been forgiven in our own lives, how can we not offer forgiveness, love, and mercy to those around us?

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If one word could depict a life, Julie Davenport’s would be “redemption.” As a child in the Perkin household, Julie’s character was forged within a legacy of faith, godliness, and ministry. So when she married a charismatic young pastor on the fast-track to prominence, life was everything she’d dreamed it would be . . . on the outside. But inside, alone and hidden from view, Julie endured abuse, betrayal, and infidelities that spiraled to include miscarriage, cancer, divorce, mental illness, and eventually suicide. With a BA in Art Education from Southwest MO State University, Julie served as a parent educator with the Independence MO School District for many years. She is now an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God. Today, through speaking engagements and two daughters continuing the legacy of ministry, God is using Julie’s life-story to validate His immeasurable grace and prove His power to redeem what Satan tried so hard to destroy. 

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