Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the fifth in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

You can read the earlier posts by clicking on the title. The first bold prayer is Lord, Bless Me. The second bold prayer is Show Me Your Glory. The third bold prayer I shared is Help My Unbelief! The fourth bold prayer is Not My Will, But Yours Be Done.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #5: Father, forgive them. (Luke 23: 34)

This is the prayer Jesus prayed on the cross.

It’s hard to imagine praying this prayer in Jesus’ situation. He has been deserted by his followers, condemned in a fake trial, beaten, and mocked and tortured, nailed to the cross between criminals, and now the soldiers are casting lots for his clothes. 

He could have cursed them. He could have struck them all dead. He could have demanded them to fall down and worship Him right then and there.

Yet, Jesus prays, “Forgive them.”

Each of us has at least one story about how someone did us wrong.

The world tells us that revenge is the answer in such situations. But Jesus says His way is to forgive them.

Telling someone else to forgive is easy advice to give. Saying I’m sorry might be hard words to choke out, but it’s lots easier than actually doing the forgiving part. In fact, there are times when it just feels impossible to forgive someone who has really hurt you. 

I’d like to go back and revisit the story of my divorce.

I felt intense hurt and grief when my ex-husband left me. I thought our marriage was happy. We had three very young children … 6, 5 and 3 years old. I was busy with them and taking care of our home. I had no idea he was unhappy or needed something more. When he stated he didn’t want to be married anymore, I felt as if I had been cast aside. I felt like I was worthless. It was as if our 14-year marriage and our children meant nothing to him. The pain in my heart was the greatest hurt I had ever known up until that point.

With time, the intense grief subsided, and my heart began to heal. And yet, forgiveness didn’t come easily. I wanted to forgive, but the struggle to do it was hard.

Three years after my divorce, I remarried my current husband. While my new marriage certainly brought a lot of joy into my life, it didn’t help me forgive my former spouse. I wanted to forgive. I prayed about a lot about forgiving. But my wounded heart still struggled to let it all go.

You’ve probably heard it said, “Forgive and forget.” Logically it seems like forgetting would be the more difficult part of that process, but for me forgetting actually came much easier than forgiving! For long periods of time, I would forget about the pain of unforgiveness in my heart, which oddly enough fooled me into believing I had also forgiven my ex-husband. Unfortunately, just as soon as I saw him in person again those old wounds felt fresh all over again. 

While the act of forgiveness might lead to forgetting, unfortunately the act of forgetting doesn’t mean that you’ve truly done any forgiving.

I complained to my counselor about my inability to forgive my former husband. She told me to detach, although I wasn’t exactly sure how to detach from someone you must be in contact with to co-parent your children. But I tried.

My kids were becoming teenagers anyway so easy enough to just step back and let them handle their own interactions with their father. The more I detached, the more I wanted to detach. The distance grew and I suddenly discovered I felt less stress and worry than I had in years. This detachment idea was working! 

But unfortunately, every time I saw my ex-husband in person, my heart felt all bruised again. Forgiveness seemed awful slow in coming.

Due to his military career, my children only saw their dad a few times a year. Furthermore, he often opted to fly the kids to visit him wherever he was stationed instead of traveling to see them in Louisiana. 

As my daughter’s high school graduation approached, I wondered how seeing him in person would make me feel. It had been well over a year since the last time I had seen him in person, but I recalled that after his previous visit I knew had still not truly forgiven him. I sort of assumed it would be the same this time around, too.

The weekend of graduation arrived. My ex-husband was due to arrive in town the day before her graduation. As it happened, I was out running errands when he showed at my house. My husband Jon sent me a text to let me know, stating, “I told him to make himself at home.”

When I returned home, I walked through the door to find he had done exactly that. My former husband was sitting on the sofa, talking, and laughing with his children and completely enjoying himself in my home. That was just the beginning. He stayed that night for dinner, and arrived at our home early the next morning while we were still dressing for graduation. In fact, for the entire graduation weekend, my ex-husband spent most of his time hanging out with our family. To my surprise, I didn’t feel put out by his presence. 

On morning after graduation, my kids left for a week of vacation with their dad. As I waved them off, I realized I had just spent most of the weekend in the presence of my ex-husband, and yet emotionally I felt okay. No annoyance. No anger. My emotions were totally in check, and I felt in control of myself, instead of being strung out or tied up in knots like I normally felt after interacting with him. No bitterness remained in my heart. No hardness toward him. My heart felt lighter as I realized somehow forgiveness had happened. I wasn’t burdened anymore!

Since that day 3 years ago, I have been in my ex-husband’s presence several more times. In fact, last year he was with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I can tell you that I have truly forgiven him for how he ended our marriage.

I don’t say this lightly … forgiving him was not easy for me at all. And yet, with God’s grace and help, I discovered that forgiveness is not something we do … rather it is a work God does in us. When we look to Him to help us forgive, God heals our hearts and gives us His perfect peace.

This prayer might be the hardest of these seven bold prayers to pray, but the peace it brings to us is worth it.