This Sunday is the third Sunday of our three week series on forgiveness. The topic will be "Doing the Hard Work: Forgiving Others."

If nothing else, our conversations on forgiveness have taught us that forgiveness is difficult. Because we are human we are confronted with the challenge to forgive every day of our lives. We are fallible and the people we come into contact with are fallible. Each day we are challenged to forgive things large and small.

One of my favorite books on forgiveness is Why Forgive by Johann Christoph Arnold. In it he writes, "...in the end we won't have to answer for what others do to us ~ only for what we do to them."

In my own life I struggled with forgiveness for a long time. (And in my honest moments I admit that I still struggle with it.) As I've shared with you before, several years ago I was the victim of a sexual assault and attempted murder. The assault happened in the parsonage where I was living. The perpetrator was arrested and charged with the crime. Through the course of the criminal proceedings and sentencing he never expressed remorse or apology.

Under the circumstances I found it very difficult to forgive. I held on to the hurt for many reasons. Yet, in holding onto the hurt, I eventually discovered that the only one I was hurting was myself. When I finally decided to forgive him for what he had done to me I experienced a great sense of freedom. To paraphrase the words of Craig Barnes, I finally accepted that I would never have a better past. By forgiving I didn't forget the hurt or condone what he had done. What I did, with God's help, was give myself back my future.

We all have a story of forgiveness. In fact, I'm sure we all have several stories of forgiveness. What I have shared is just one of mine. As we approach this final Sunday in our forgiveness series I invite you to reflect on your own experiences of forgiveness. When have you struggled to forgive? When has forgiveness been easy?

To quote Johann Christoph Arnold again, "The love of a forgiving heart is never wasted."