Forgiveness & Grace - 20 Years in the Making

A true story that starts about Twenty Years Ago...

A young enlisted man in the US Navy and young woman meet, fall in love, and get married. The start their life together in a Navy town, San Diego I think. But duty calls the young man out to sea. Over the span of 3 different cruises, the two of them get to spend maybe 2 months together while he is in port. (Not that he could do much about it.) The young woman gets lonely. She finds herself liking the attention of other men. She strays too far and commits adultery. The young couple who barely have had time together at all get divorced. No kids so no custody issues. Neither has much money either so there is no mess with dividing marital assets. She moves away.

About Ten Years Later....

He has married a second time, but it didn’t work out either. He moves to Memphis. Later he comes to know Christ and gets married a third time, this time to a Christian.

The first wife matures and becomes a Christian, too. She remarries, moves to Oregon, and has children. The woman begins to feel led to seek out her first husband and ask his forgiveness for what she did wrong in their marriage. But she doesn’t know where he is.

A Couple of Years ago...

The need to seek forgiveness is still strong in the first wife. Luckily, technology has advanced and there is a bunch of information readily available on the Internet. She finds that her ex-husband used to have a job with a chain of bookstores and had written a bunch of book reviews that got posted on Amazon.com. She finds out his old employer. She finds out his new wife’s name, too. She finds where his new wife was a full-time Director of Christian Education at a church in Memphis. She calls them. She discovers the 3rd wife is no longer there, but took a position at another church in Northern Mississipi.

A Few Weeks Ago...

A woman in Oregon finds out she has to go on a business trip to Memphis.

Monday, October 26th, 2005 or thereabouts

The pastor of a mid-sized church in Northern Mississippi has to make up his mind what to preach about on Sunday. After all, they have to print bulletins ahead of time. He decides to preach on the topic of forgiveness.

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

A woman from Oregon has extended her stay from her business trip to Memphis and finds her way to that mid-size church in Northern Mississippi.

That pastor begins a sermon on forgiveness, much like he has begun many other sermons for the last 15-20 years. He notices a new woman in the sanctuary. He doesn’t know who she is but he keeps coming back to her face during the sermon because it is glowing. She is smiling ear to ear. “She must really like my sermon on forgiveness," he thinks to himself.

The pastor pronounces the benediction. The congregation starts heading out. From the door at the back of the sanctuary, wife #3 sees her husband kneeling in prayer at the altar at the front of the now almost empty sanctuary with a woman she doesn’t know, also in prayer. Curious, she heads that way. Her husband sees her and says, “This is Pam.” “Hi,” she says, “nice to meet you Pam.” “No,” her husband interrupts, “This is PAM.” Then it clicked. His first wife.

So, twenty years after committing adultery, ten years after becoming a Christian, and after 10 years of wanting to do it... a woman from Oregon finds her forgiveness and a burden of 10 years is lifted.

And a pastor finds out why he was led to speak about forgiveness.

After reading with this story are you filled with gladness for them? Do you have a new found appreciation for the power of grace? Or, are you trying to figure out how much of your personal information could be pieced together from a Google search on the Internet? Maybe being found wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

PS. I got this story tonight from wife #3 herself.

Copyright © 2005 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved