I have started this four times in the last five days.

Last Thursday due to a series of unfortunate events I had to put our dog, Sandy, to sleep. She was a dear friend with much affection in her heart. One of our friends described her as a “noble dog.” I wrote about Sandy in this blog back in March of this year. Thus the reason I have not felt very motivated to write.

Life is hard, but thanks be to God for all of his many blessings.

You know what I am talking about, right? You know how life can come at you in a way that is completely unexpected and you suddenly find yourself in a situation that you could have hardly imagined days or weeks before?

It can grip you. Twist me. Mess with our heads. Lead our hearts away from forgiveness.

Read what my friend Dale Pauls recently wrote about forgiveness…

“Must a person be penitent before being forgiven? Perhaps. Sometimes. But maybe the more urgent question is: How can they repent unless someone forgives them? What is more likely to lead you to penitence? Isn’t it someone spontaneously and freely offering you forgiveness at great cost to them? What changes you?

So I listen to myself when I will not forgive. I have been wronged, sinned against. Months pass, maybe years. I am still angry. My voice rises in pitch and trembles. My stomach catches in my throat. My pulse races. I trip over my words. My soul darkens. And the wrong looms up, swells in size, and comes to fill my whole horizon. I am holding it so close to my eyes that it’s all I can see. And the person who did this to me was just this fragile, frightened, flawed person just like me. And I let it fill my universe. Poor blinded me. I am a person who not only needs forgiveness, but I am a person who needs to learn to forgive.”

Life is hard. But God is good.

Dale ministers with the Stamford Church of Christ. He and I ministered in Connecticut together. The Stamford website is a treasure trove of good reading.