The Hatfields and McCoys in me

Now before you start worrying -- I'm not confessing to a violent murder (or pig theft) with this week's title, but I am confessing to a flaw in my character: a stubborn unwillingness to let go of past wrongs. While I come by the stubbornness honestly (I think my folks could easily point out stubborn streaks in the family tree), I'm pretty much alone in my ability to hold a grudge -- at least among my closest family members.

My struggle to forgive is not something I'm sure I want to air publicly, but Easter has convicted me to write about it anyway. Easter is that wonderful, joyous holy day of the year when we celebrate Christ's victory over the grave and the sacrifice he made to save us all.

His death on that wooden cross wiped the slate clean for all of us. His resurrection gives us hope of our own salvation. We are a forgiven people of God.

We are forgiven. And we are to forgive.
Just as we are forgiven, we are to go out and forgive those who hurt us. For a biblical reminder of this, check out the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6 and Luke 11: "And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us" (Luke 11:4).

In recent months, my struggle to forgive some deep hurts has been difficult, especially because the hurt came from within my own church family, a family I have been part of my whole life. Hence my reluctance to even discuss it.

Aren't Christians all supposed to love each other and greet each other joyfully every time they see each other? And aren't we all supposed to join hands and sing Kumbaya? And in general put on a "Pollyanna" front to the world?

Fortunately not! However, for some reason, the world has created that stereotype of us, and so when the Church (big C, institution of Christian faith) fails in some very public way, non-Christians point to those examples to show that Christianity must not really work and churches must be filled with fake people and hypocrites. My argument to that is that being Christians doesn't make us perfect, but it should make us want to be better human beings.