Take it to the Cross of Jesus

Met up with a long lost friend today, AS. It was a really good time of catching up and sharing. Remember those days early this year when I was still working in Shenton Way , we used to have lunch together every other day. This time round I saw her, my heart melted...she lost so much weight that at least to me her face seemed to sink in! Remnants of a really pretty face still remain..but what I saw was a face washed with tears, hurts, stress and hardship from the past 6 months since I last saw her.

Was pretty worried when she din contact me after I sms-ed her a birthday greeting. After we were seated comfortably did all the pouring come out. She was really broken and hurt inside. It's been years of accumulated hatred, hurt and unforgiveness that formed her from what she is today - a hardened heart.

She tried to put up a brave front still smiled and joked a lot in front of me, but the crunch time came when I asked her about her work...there torrents ran down her cheeks... AS could not take the pressure from work and hurts from her family that her sharing kept going back to the unfair treatment that she felt, the hurts that her family caused that she had began to question herself deeply, "Why am I working so hard for?" Stress and dejection really broke her when she realised that all in all she was really empty inside despite being in a high paying job and in high profile in the corporate world.

I assured her that she's really established as a career woman. "Rachel, you do not see what goes on inside, all the hurt and pain..." AS went on and on, so many times she cried over past hurts that her family has caused her, so many times she cried over the job that's wearing her down...

"AS, in our down times, do not let the devil have a foothold!" I keep praying for this friend, this deep cut inside that causing so much pain, the incident that fateful night one year ago at home that caused her to move out of her home, I pray that the Lord will hear her cry and heal her of her hurts. Questions came up on whether I hated my parents, which i told her in the past yes, I did, parents like humans are fallible, they did many unfair things and also hurt me, which I told CC the other day, the unspoken anguish that sometimes as firstborn that you have to carry... but its the forgiveness that brought me freedom, me finally putting down all the scores against my parents that once brought pain into joy... learnt a most wonderful quote today from Dr Lewis Smedes, in "Forgive and Forget"

"Revenge never evens the score, for alienated people never keep score of wrongs by the same mathematics. Forgiveness is the ONLY way to stop the cycle of unfair pain turning in your memory."

It's this same forgiveness that we must first have to see that we do will somehow fail another person, in whatever we do or in our speech, we need to acknowledge the fact that no matter how hard it seems to not to keep score, not to hold on to the right that you must be upset, or that the right to feel wronged.Freedom comes when we call onto the Lord!

My dear AS, you ARE in my prayers...