we have (as it were) crossed swords before, You seem to think (assumed by your answers to my former posts, please forgive me if I am wrong) that I have a wishy washy attitude to sin. On the contrary, but I am going to let you in on something that happened to me, I have never written of this before in this way.
I had invited a friend of mine (we had known each other for years) to the opening of an Inn near where I lived. He bought with him four friends, 3 male and 1 female, Our history was based on narcotics of one form or another so a good night was expected by all, and the motorcycle club I was with had planned a bit of a party afterwards and the landlord had said we could use the spare rooms in the Inn to sleep off the nights revelry.
The thing was I had grown up a bit, got married and moved on, I still liked the weed and a bit of amphetamine now and then, but my focus was my wife and children and work and motorcycle. This particular evening was arranged when we met by chance while out shopping. He instantly took a dislike to my family but I did not pick up on it.
My youngest daughter fell ill the day before and she and my eldest daughter had already arranged to go to their grandmothers that weekend but the youngest ended up staying in bed at home, so when my 'friends' arrived the woman they bought stayed with my wife and all the men went to the pub for some fun.
He knew what was going to happen and had planed it accordingly, he could not bare that I was contented with my lot which did not include him so he bought with him 10 LSD microdots. He knew the pub had a special beer as a feature from which 4 pint jugs of ale would be dispensed and his plan was to sabotage the jugs with the LSD and then have fun of his own.
He knew I was not gay and that "I was still a virgin" and it was his intention to "break me in" along with any others who would be there. His plans were thwarted when his lady friend stayed at home with my wife and my youngest, because she had the LSD. By 10:30 that evening he was a bit drunk and getting angry, members of the club I was with were getting nervous and we decided to leave early, even though the driver of the rented bus had had too much to drink we left.
When I got home I found my wife sat on the stairs with the poker in her hand covered in blood mumbling "She will not get to her" meaning my youngest. there was a certain amount of confusion which lasted about 30 minutes before they left.
She, had given all the LSD to my wife in a 2Ltr bottle of beer and had then tried to erase her mind with pictures of a spider with big teeth, this ploy didn't work because my wife was insect friendly but the beating she took was meant for me, she pulled out her fingernails with pliers, she hung her by the dogs chain lead to the bannisters while she then raped her with an unopened beer bottle, the type with a metal cap. She broke her collar bone, fractured and her eye socket and this carried on all night until we got back. My wife died four years later, she developed anorexia and never really recovered.
The upshot is yes we are to forgive and we are to forgive ourselves, I think this one is one of the most important things Jesus has done with me, allowing me to forgive myself and allowing me to be able to forgive my former friend and his companions.
My life now is so far from those days as to be unreal, but those days have left a thorn in my side which by Gods grace I have to live with. I am now so blessed that my youngest daughter through her illness slept through it all and my eldest wasn't there.If anything like this were to happen now I do not know how I would react, not that I try to put my new family in harms way.
I know that I have a propensity to flare up when I feel my family is threatened and going to the cross is my only way to calm down. I know how much I have been forgiven and the things I have done although now sunk in the deepest part of the sea by His grace are still in memory and make me wince when they come to mind, and my language can be choice at times turning the air purple with pink spots, but in Christ I know that a coal from the alter has been put to my lips, and my heart and my uncleanness is made clean by His blood.
The Lord has put on my heart the salvation of 300.000.000 in Europe, and this is just my heart, I know there are more out there who feel for their continent and I know the Holy Spirit is going to make a really big splash in the sea of this world, but afterwards a great evil is going to sweep over the world, and I fear for all my children, those grown up and those still at home.
I have earnestly petitioned God to keep my children safe, I do not want my children to go through what I have or be touched by even a 100th of it. I am getting older and my strength is failing and I can not protect those I love as I used to be able to and I have to trust God to do it, I have to show my children by my actions what forgiveness is and how it encompasses everything, even those who are doing the hurting while they are doing the hurting.
I can in all honesty say I hope to hold and hug and love my former friend and his four companions within the Kingdom because then they too will know the saving power of Jesus. The holy Spirit has let me know also that If I do not forgive them I am stopping God from judging them on that point in their lives, and that even though I have forgiven them and asked God to do so, they will still have to answer to God for the lives they have lived when He returns. As will we all.