a story of forgiveness, part 3

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Isaiah 1:18

“Come now, and let us Reason Together, Saith the LORD: though your sins be as Scarlet, they shall be as White as Snow; though they be red like Crimson, they Shall be as Wool.”

Hat-tip: Kristi Ann for bringing this verse to mind.

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While my husband and I were separated I became ill and was hospitalized. He was across the country visiting his sister who was having very serious surgery. This was a terribly lonely time. One of the women from the Bible study, the wife of the preacher, visited me when I was discharged. She spoke to me of the Lord very gently and truthfully and prayed with me. Later when I was alone in my rented room I knelt down and admitted to the Lord that I had messed up my life and asked Him to fix it. I didn’t say a special prayer but was truly sorry. I didn’t have sound doctrinal thoughts about repentance and faith but only my simple need for Him to fix my life. (I haven’t shared much about the sin that brought a kind of ruin because it isn’t best.)

The first change in things was in my nightly prayers for my sister-in-law. I had been saying the rosary for her healing. Gently the Lord impressed upon me that this wasn’t needed, to simply pray for her. The second change was in how I saw things: I understood why my Christian friends said ‘the Lord’ all the time, not just ‘God’. (You may have noticed me using ‘God’ a lot in my testimony. I’ve done this to show you the distance between me and our Holy Lord.) Also, I clearly saw that in this world there are people who are saved and people who aren’t. For the first time I saw the Kingdom of God. 

John 3:3

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

My sister-in-law’s surgery went well and my husband came home. To his surprise I met him at the airport. I explained all that had happened, my illness and prayer, and how sorry I was for not being a good wife and hurting him. I never felt so sorry for anything in my life. He was puzzled but happy – he wasn’t a Christian yet – but accepted what I had to say as real because of the change the Lord had made in me. We have lived as husband and wife since that time in the summer of 1979.

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As the Lord continued to speak to me in His Word, and through my circumstances seen in the light of His Word, I lived in Psalm 119 and learned how He saw my situation, drinking it in. Jesus, thank you! I didn’t want pain but was comforted by Your Word. The following year my husband trusted the Lord Jesus as his Saviour and awoke to a brand new world!

Psalm 119 

⁶⁵ Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord,
according unto thy word.
⁶⁶ Teach me good judgment and knowledge:
for I have believed thy commandments.
⁶⁷ Before I was afflicted I went astray:
but now have I kept thy word.
⁶⁸ Thou art good, and doest good;
teach me thy statutes.

⁷¹ It is good for me that I have been afflicted;
that I might learn thy statutes.

⁷⁵ I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right,
and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

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