My Experience of God is of Love and Forgiveness

Patricia

Late coming Catholic, wife, mother, social worker.

Forgiveness. The very word fuels emotions and is often, in my experience, what shuts people down to God.

I got to know this because I was raised without faith and I learned forgiveness to be a construct that is ready to be altered based on circumstance, severity, and who needed forgiving.

The idea that God forgives all was disgusting because ‘what if ….’ (insert the worst case scenario).

When it was personal, when it came to me, I felt I should be forgiven. Because I always said sorry and I felt sorry inside. Others would likely need to show me their sorrow and even then I had reasons to doubt their sincerity because I knew my own nature was flawed and sometimes, I wasn’t always truly sorry… wait what?

So that’s how forgiveness went for me.

I would repeat offences and expect forgiveness from others, be loath to give it myself, and scoff at the idea that people who followed God were doing any better than I was.

After thirty-plus years of that I was challenged by attending Mass so my children could get the sacraments under their belt. At first, I thought I just felt awkward because I didn’t usually attend and the ‘regulars’ were probably judging me from their high horses. With each Mass it got worse. It was a weight, a real heaviness that seemed to press me down into the pew, it moved into my heart, it made me want to cry at times, feel hot at other times. It was about no other person in that church apart from me.

Slowly God revealed to me what I needed forgiveness for - not all at once, but gradually.

With each heart wrenching revelation there was also an opportunity. God never left me alone in the pain and he never left me without a pathway to seek forgiveness.

Feeling the full force of forgiveness only came once I realised what the full force of repentance was like.

I know now how much love God has for us all and I can forgive, and I have.

My experience of God is of love and forgiveness.