God extends the promise of forgiveness during Lent. Our attention is directed to our own need of forgiveness for our sins, and the Holy Spirit directs our repentant thoughts, also, toward our lack of forgiveness of those who have sinned against us. A believer in God dwells with uneasiness over this unforgiving spirit and senses that it is at war with God’s intended Will for our lives. Still, a forgiving spirit is not natural to fallen humanity, and forgiveness is difficult even for the believer. The poet described our predicament well:. “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

The psalms of penitence and remorse are more for our sins against God and others, but less obviously so for our sin of unforgiveness for those who have sinned against us. That one is especially hard. Especially if the sin damaged us with its full power to destroy.

A number of years ago, one of the beautiful and talented young women who had served as Miss America disclosed, some years afterward, the shocking revelation that her father had sexually abused her and her three sisters during their growing-up years by prostituting his own daughters for himself. She courageously revealed her suffering by telling how her father had slipped twenty dollar bills under the door of his choice among each of them, on nights those iniquities were committed, and that was their guilty history shared among them all. One can hardly imagine how, apart from God’s transforming power, these women could have recovered, even to this day.

Forgiveness of a father who has perpetrated a crime of this magnitude against his own children is nearly inconceivable to most of us, and recovery from damage to the soul which sin of this nature inflicts on vulnerable young victims by a member of their own family, father or brother, cannot happen apart from God’s sovereign grace. Whatever compliance the young girl submitted, even though she herself might have seemed to solicit the abuse herself at times, her inner soul and psyche are destroyed by its perversion, and this is what that former Miss America had received the courage to confront and expose. I pray that she has received God’s enablement to forgive and that her father has sought forgiveness for his unspeakable crime and sin against God and his own child.

The seven Penitential Psalms we looked at last week offer guidance and hope for all those like them, both victims and predators, through sincere repentance and God’s merciful forgiveness and divine restoration. Though David’s sin was not the rape or prostitution of his own daughters, his adultery with Bathsheba and deliberate sending of her husband Uriah to his death on the battlefield, were abominable sins against the Lord Whom David nonetheless loved.

David’s forgiveness, jubilation, and gratitude, expressed in Psalm 30, are models for our own repentance and gratitude to God. Each one of us can know the fullness of this joy: the Lenten pathway of contrition, repentance, forgiveness received, salvation, and gladsome praise and gratitude to our Sovereign God, is offered to all who will receive God’s mercy and grace. I know. They are mine. Praise the Lord!

David rejoices:

“I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up,

and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.

O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.

O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave:

Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

Sing unto the Lord! O ye saints of his,

and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness!

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing!

Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent!

O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever!”

That same joy in the Lord can be ours! Hallelujah!

I have composed this column with the knowledge that someone (or more) who reads this column has suffered in a like manner as the former Miss America who sought help from a trained professional, equipped to help her encounter her ordeal and its degradation and to overcome its paralyzing control over her soul and life.

There are trained pastors in churches near you, who studied excellent pastoral care curricula and are professionally equipped to help you, at no cost to you. Reclaim your life the Lord intends for you.

Thanks be to God.