It was eve­ning. The lit­t­le ones were sit­ting and pla­ying with their lego bricks. My hus­band was pre­pa­ring to go to work. He went round to each child and bles­sed them with the gos­pel. Then he came to me, and we hug­ged and bles­sed each ot­her. Sud­den­ly, when he was al­re­a­dy le­a­ving, our yo­un­gest child loo­ked up and said: “Dad­dy! You did not bless me!” My hus­band said he had al­re­a­dy done that. But the child had ap­pa­rent­ly been so se­ri­ous­ly con­cent­ra­ting on her play that she had not no­ti­ced it. She in­sis­ted: “You did not bless!”

My hus­band for­got all about his need to hur­ry. He came back, ten­der­ly hug­ged his lit­t­le girl and bles­sed all her sins for­gi­ven in Je­sus’ name and blood. The girl soft­ly stro­ked her fat­her’s cheek and said: “Je­sus with Dad­dy!”

I still feel good to think about that mo­ment. How im­por­tant for­gi­ve­ness is. When we for­gi­ve each ot­her, we feel that Je­sus Him­self is there with us, bles­sing and car­rying us.

What are yo­ur me­mo­ries of for­gi­ve­ness? I have felt the gos­pel to be a re­sour­ce for me at all ti­mes. At dif­fi­cult ti­mes it has see­med good to be bles­sed all my sins and even my sor­rows for­gi­ven. It has been so good to think that we have this pri­vi­le­ge. We have the right to put away all things that weigh he­a­vi­ly on our minds. We do not even need to car­ry the bur­den of sor­rows.

I re­cent­ly dis­cus­sed with my hus­band about how good our life is. There has been love bet­ween us. When we tal­ked, each felt that the ot­her one has had to for­gi­ve more and car­ry more things. We loo­ked at each ot­her, laug­hing and crying at the same time. We felt safe. We had be­lie­ved all our ang­ry words and bad fee­lings for­gi­ven. We on­ly re­mem­be­red the warm love and at­tach­ment that we felt when we had been ab­le to for­gi­ve and be for­gi­ven. The gra­ti­tu­de.

Hymn 389 (Song of Zion 391) was sung in our wed­ding 18 ye­ars ago. That song en­cou­ra­ges us to le­a­ve our whole life in God’s care. It re­minds us about God’s love and His pro­mi­se to car­ry us. God’s in­comp­re­hen­sib­le love has al­so been pre­sent in our mar­ri­a­ge. It has been pre­sent in for­gi­ve­ness, in the many small and big mi­rac­les of eve­ry­day life, in eve­ryt­hing. I be­lie­ve that we can feel the dee­pest hap­pi­ness when we feel that love.

I pray that the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her would con­ti­nue to bless our days in the fu­tu­re and would al­low us to con­ti­nue our good life to­get­her. That He would pro­tect our whole fa­mi­ly in faith. That we would al­wa­ys have Je­sus with us.

And I wish the same to you. I wish you could feel that God’s love is more abun­dant and its po­wer gre­a­ter than any sor­row in life. That you would be ab­le to drown yo­ur sins and temp­ta­ti­ons in the sweet stream of for­gi­ve­ness and be­lie­ve that they are re­al­ly for­gi­ven. In he­a­ven.

Text: An­ne Lind­fors

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen