Even You Can Be Forgiven

Even You Can Be Forgiven

I heard the story of a preacher who was at a certain church preaching on the subject of forgiveness. In the crowd that day there was young woman whose heart was heavy with a load of guilt and shame. After he had finished preaching, a few moments had passed by and every one had left the auditorium except for this young woman. So when he’d seen her, he went up to her and thanked her for coming and asked her if she had enjoyed the service.

Immediately she said she had. She said however that “I don’t think the message was for me. You don’t know my past. And she began to tell her story She told the preacher.

"When I was a little girl, I got saved but my home life was such a mess. As a child my father repeatedly told me that I was ugly. He was an alcoholic and stayed drunk most of the time. My mother always told me that I was worthless and would never amount to anything. So when I became a teenager I met a guy that told me I was special. I had never heard words like that, nor felt that way before. And so in my ignorance I gave him everything. A month or two later when he found out I was going to have a baby, he left me and I have never seen him since. I could not go to my mother or father, so I went to a health clinic and did away with my child. And now even though it has been many years ago, I still feel so guilty and dirty over what I had done. Preacher, can God really forgive me for doing something like that?"

The preacher then with a tear in his eye and a broken heart began to tell her what Jesus could do for her. After they prayed she had a smile on her face, and a glow about her. God had removed all guilt from her heart.

From a sermon by Brian Harvison, "Hope in the Lord’s Forgiving Love" 8/1/2008