Student Testimony: Forgiveness

Today's student guest post is by Elisabeth Crosby.  She is in the first  year of her MDiv PACC program. Elisabeth and her two girls live in Halifax, NS.

Once upon a time, I was married and had two little girls – Joanna was three and Rachel was a new baby.

 I was miserable.  I was suffering from depression, although I didn't know it.  I could hardly reach out to people – which is hard to believe if you know me at all!  I called this time in my life “The Dark Night of My Soul,” after St. John of the Cross' description spoke into that time. I was so dry spiritually; I
was beginning to question whether my salvation had been real.  I felt like a hypocrite because we were about to start fundraising to be missionaries with Interserve and I was a fraud.

I started crying out to God for answers.  We had done some psychological testing to see if we would be good missionaries and one of the things the counsellor said was that our marriage could use work. I used this as a ploy to get him to agree to go to a marriage weekend.  At the marriage weekend, I despaired as I listened to the talks.  Our marriage needed a lot of work, but I had no energy to do any of it.  On the last day, I started crying uncontrollably as something the speaker said made me realize I was harbouring unforgiveness against my husband.  And I could tell that God was asking me to forgive him.

I was NOT going to forgive him.  I could not forgive him.  I had suffered so much in my marriage and instead of God convicting my spouse that he needed to change; He was asking ME to forgive?  No way!

Here I was, in April 2005, with the choice to follow God's leading.  I did – reluctantly.  I decided to start with one thing I was good at – research. I read everything God has to say about forgiveness in the Bible.  As I began to uncover His truth, He started to break through my hard heart. As I recognized just how much God had forgiven me for, I realized just how stubborn I had been.  I had been doing what I like to refer to as the best definition of bitterness - “drinking poison and expecting the offender to get sick.”  I finally released my husband to the cross and began to forgive him.

Slowly, my heart became God's to mold as I released my burden to Him.  Three years later, when I was really close to God and could hear His voice and recognize His calling, I felt lead to take the girls and leave our situation.

When I returned to Canada, I started attending the Living Waters program. There, I finally found a place where I could be completely safe to explore the deep-seated issues in my life. I was able to share openly about things I had never said out loud.  God started a process of opening my heart, first to show the wounds and get healing, then to pour His love into me. My journey was no longer about my marriage; it was about the work He wanted to do within me in order to make me the woman He wanted me to be.