Great Plains Daily Devotional for 10/3/2019

Psalm 130 

A Song of Ascents.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
    Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
    so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel
    from all its iniquities.

Lately I’ve been having trouble with forgiveness. No, not with any one person in my life but with a shirt in my closet.

Weird, huh?

It used to be one of my favorite shirts. It was put into rotation once a week as it is both comfortable and flattering. But recently I’ve found myself leaving it on the hanger in my closet, not being able to bring myself to wear it.

There isn’t anything wrong with the shirt, it just happens to be the one I was wearing when a mammogram led to an unexpected biopsy that turned into my breast cancer diagnosis.

Time has moved both quickly and slowly during the last few months. I’m halfway through my first type of chemo and learning to take each day as it comes. There are daily reminders of my battle. The loss of my hair, the side effects of chemotherapy and all the little indignities that come with it. Every day I get dressed and every day my eye has passed over “the shirt”.

Today I took that shirt off its hanger and put it on. It’s not the shirt’s fault I have cancer. It’s just a reminder of that scary day. I knew if I stop wearing it, it will always be reminder of that day. I needed to forgive “the shirt”.

We get angry with our family, friends, God and ourselves. We have bookmarks in our memories that remind us of the wrongs done by us and others. We hold onto grudges that lodge in our hearts and make us bitter.

True forgiveness is the only way out of that dark path. Forgiveness is the light that penetrates those deep dark places and allows for the antiseptic to cleanse our soul.

I’m going to do my best over the course of the rest of my treatment to pull “the shirt” out of my closet more often and create new joyful memories in it.

What things in our lives can we draw out of the dark and into the healing light of forgiveness?

Prayer for Reflection

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31