Finding Hope and Healing in a Fallen WorldSample

FORGIVING YOURSELF

Forgiveness can be difficult. Perhaps never more so than when extending it to one person in particular: yourself.

On a warm spring day in 2008, Leslie McGill set out toward Dallas, Texas, where her husband had taken a job. With her in the SUV were her two children, Gabriel and Marissa. All three were excited about this new chapter in life. The future looked bright. But in the blink of an eye, it all went dark.

Several hours into their drive, the family puppy started mischief in the backseat, climbing all over Gabriel, trying to steal his lunch from his lap. With the highway around her empty, Leslie felt it was safe to reach behind her to assist her son. Her eyes only left the road for a moment.

But that split second is all it would take.

The SUV began to drift off the shoulder of the road. Startled, Leslie over-corrected, and the vehicle careened down the embankment and struck a tree. Thirteen-year-old Marissa was killed.

In the midst of such terrible circumstances, one question emerges: How do you learn to forgive yourself? Perhaps in your case, no one has died. Still, perhaps your choices have killed a marriage or a relationship with a family member.

The most important thing you can do is fall into the loving arms of Jesus and experience anew His grace and mercy. That’s where healing always begins. But it doesn’t end there. We need to leave behind the emotional isolation in which our shame has imprisoned us and connect with people who care about us. Tragic mistakes don’t just wound us; they shatter us, and a broken person can’t be their own source of healing. So immerse yourself in the embrace of family and friends, or seek help from a professional counselor if you’ve felt trapped in your heartache. God’s love and assurance and caring gestures from others, build forgiveness within us until we are able to embrace it for ourselves.