Vengeance vs. Forgiveness -- Hope Chronicles 71

Awhile back I read Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult. She does not write to a Christian audience, but I have really liked some of her stuff. Change of Heart was not one of my favorites. Yet it still had those "ah -ha" moments that made me think.

The premise is that a pregnant woman's husband and child are murdered. The murder is on death row and wants his heart to go to the woman's second child. As you will have guessed needs a heart transplant. In the book, the mother, June, asks the following questions:

Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love?

Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?

Humanity has a great need for vengeance. We want to see the wrongs righted. We want people who hurt us to pay ounce for ounce back every bit of hurt and suffering they have caused.

Humanity has a great need for vengeance, but Christianity has no need for it. Yes, being human, we still want to see people pay for what they have done to us. But Jesus calls us to something higher, something better. He calls us to give our hurts and even our hopes to Him and let Him do the sorting out. Yes, our enemy may in the end get his dying wish, but we would only rob ourselves and the ones we love if we lived by vengeance instead of forgiveness.

But forgiveness is hard. My father was very abusive while I was growing up. He has never asked forgiveness for what he did. I must admit that I still harbor some bitterness about everything he robbed me of and even the angst it has caused with other family members. But I do not actively seek revenge. I leave that all with Jesus. To that extent I have forgiven.

Yet, the question is one my pastor has asked in his own life. He had an abusive step father who late in life responded to an altar call. His first response was, "No, you cannot forgive him, God!" But like me, he has had to learn to leave the balance of it all up to God.

There is the rub, isn't it? With the cross their is no balance. It's all lopsided because Jesus paid the price for all of it. Because of that lopsided balance, I have hope. Without it, I would never be able to come to God. Coming to Jesus, isn't that worth giving up our sense of vengeance?

Change of Heart -- Hope Chronicles 24

I don't know if most bookstores do this or not, but the one I work in lets you borrow hard-cover books for 2 weeks! The management keeps the dust jacket. I've never done it before, but Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult recently came out. I'm on a budget, and since this a hardcover, it isn't in the budget. Since I'm only part-time "seasonal" (they call me in as a sub), I didn't know if the borrowing policy would extend to me. Happiness -- it does!



So, I've borrowed Change of Heart. Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite fiction writers. (Before you go out and buy her stuff on my say so, I don't know that she is a Christian. So she doesn't necessarily write from a Christian perspective. Some of her stuff is rather "edgy," and I'm not sure I would recommend a few of her books. Other books, I just absolutely love and have read numerous times. More specifically, My Sister's Keeper.)



What I love about her later books is that she completely gets you in the mind of the characters.



And I love the way she strings words together. Sometimes it makes me catch my breath and go back and read it again. It's beautiful.



So, I've just begun Change of Heart. I'm hooked. I want to know, need to know what happens. (But I turn the pages very carefully since I have to return it.)



Gist: June has endured more pain than many can imagine. Her first husband was killed in a car accident but she and her daughter were spared. Her second husband and her daughter were killed by another of the main characters, Shay. She gave birth to her second daughter after they were killed. And her daughter, Claire, needs a heart transplant.



I know it is fiction, but at the same time, I also know that life can sometimes look like that -- one sweeping tragedy after the next.



About 60 pages into it, June muses, "Life has a way of pointing out, with great sweeping signs, that you are looking at the wrong things, doesn't it? It was when I started to admit to myself that I'd rather be dead that I was given a child who had to fight to stay alive." In the same chapter she talks to Claire and Claire points out that the only thing she is allowed to do is read. Claire says, "I bet a saint can play softball."



June: "So can a girl with a heart transplant."



"But Claire wasn't listening; she knew that hope was just smoke and mirrors; she'd learned by watching me."



Of course, I zeroed in on the hope statement. I think hope by the world's standards may be smoke and mirrors. But I don't believe that it is so with Jesus. So, I've been thinking of how I might (as if I might meet her) challenge June's perception.

There was no smoke and mirrors about the cross.

There was no smoke and mirrors about Jesus rising from the dead. A couple things point to that. If the Romans stole the body, why didn't they produce it when Christianity started to catch on? If the disciples stole the body and made it up, why would they have been willing to die for something they knew was a lie? I don't think they would have been.

Maybe more compelling are the things in my life -- my change of heart. I came from a home that wasn't Christian, yet God showed Himself to me. I came from a home that was abusive. I'll admit that at times, that has meant that I have struggled to see God as a loving father. I could easily see Him as a distant King. A loving father? No. But God has shown me that a bad copy does not invalidate the original. And God is the original. I came from a home that was isolated and lonely and scary on a daily basis. I still struggle with those things some, but God is my safety. He has given me some great friends. He has helped me move out of the shadows and into the light. He has given me strength to stand up for my convictions. He has begun to redeem my brokenness. There is no smoke and mirrors about that. It is hope.

Smoke and mirrors are magic tricks, slights of the hand. Hope is about Jesus stretching His arms out on the cross and then one day stretching His arms out to welcome us into his presence.

What evidence is there in your life to refute the idea that hope is merely smoke and mirrors?