Power of forgivness

I am part of a healthy teams initiative and we were asked some questions about our family of origin. Here's one I thought I'd post:

Why do you think it’s crucial to forgive others for the consequences of their actions against you?

It is crucial because it allows you to move on in freedom with a pure heart and not get bogged down in bitterness and anger.

May I share a powerful picture of how this happened for me recently?
My Dad committed suicide in April of 2007. In my grieving process, I became very frustrated because I could not get past the suicide. It was like a black cloud hanging over me that was keeping the good memories of my Dad from flowing in. I thought I needed to wrestle with the suicide issues and get it all out and then the memories would start to flow, so I talked to a counselor and filled notebooks with everything surrounding this violent end. The cloud was still there.
Not long after this, I had a day alone in a hotel in Portugal away from my family and other responsibilities. I decided to use it as a personal retreat day. I was surprised by a wave of grief and started thinking of how much I missed my Dad. I began really weeping. I had cried off and on over the year that I had lost him, but this was the first time I had WEPT since I first heard the news. As I was crying, the thought came to me that I needed to forgive my Dad. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, but I had always thought of his suicide as sinning against God, yet had never considered that he had sinned against me too and I needed to forgive him for the consequences of his action.
Though I realized I needed to forgive him, I felt like I couldn’t. At that moment, I had an intimate experience of Christ taking my face between his hands and turning it toward him. I clamped my eyes shut as I couldn’t look at his face and couldn’t forgive and his words to me were,” Julie, I know how hard it is to forgive, I have cried these same tears in the garden of Gethsemane when I was asked to forgive the sins of the world. Forgive as you have been forgiven.”

But I still could not forgive. Then He said,” I will never leave you nor forsake you”. This was so tender to me because I realized that of all the consequences of Dad’s sin, the most hurtful one was that he left me. He forsook me. He turned his back on me. With the sweet assurance of Christ’s promise, I was able to melt into forgiveness of my Dad. At just that moment, in the town square outside my hotel room, the bells from an old church began to chime. I rose from the bed, looked out my window at the sea and my soul was soaring with the bells. I was free from the black cloud that I thought was suicide, but in reality had been unforgiveness, and the beautiful memories of my love relationship with my Dad have been flowing ever since.