Heather Bellamy reflects on the power of forgiveness.

Heather Bellamy

Hearing other people's personal experiences and journey can help encourage us in our walk. Knowing others have overcome in life helps us to face the challenges in front of us.

I'd like to share with you something Heather Bellamy spoke about. I interviewed her on Fusion, my Cross Rhythms radio show. Fusion encourages young girls to rise up and discover who they were made to be.

Heather leads Cross Rhythms, with her husband Jonathan. She runs the training centre, is the website editor and oversees a number of other aspects of the work of Cross Rhythms too. Heather is passionate about seeing ethical issues represented and God's perspective shared. Her courage and love for God is inspiring in how she follows Him in every area of her life.

When Heather came on Fusion she spoke about the importance of forgiveness and how when she was a teenager she struggled with condemnation, blame and shame.

Heather shared, "I haven't lived a perfect life, not many of us have. I've made some bad choices and was in many ways, a typical teenager. However, in response to those things I did wrong, I encountered a lot of rejection, condemnation, anger and blame. Those things were really heavy to live under and it crushed who I was.

I gave my life to Jesus when I was 16, but back then I had no concept of Him having died for my sins and I had no concept of forgiveness.

My first revelation of forgiveness was when I was walking along a street after work in a pub and I suddenly realised that Jesus had died for me. I didn't see anything about forgiveness then, but I saw that it was a massive gift and I saw clearly that no-one else loved me like that. It was quite overwhelming to think that someone would do that for me.

Between the ages of 16 and 20 I lived in a cycle of thinking that I had to get everything right to be accepted by God and that every time I messed up, I thought I had blown it and wasn't accepted anymore. Most of the time I just didn't try.

When I was 20, one night without intending to, I had a little bit too much to drink and in that loosened state I had smoked a couple of cigarettes. To me that was a huge thing. Later that night I woke up at three in the morning and sobbed solidly for about two hours, because I literally thought I had lost God forever.

After crying for two hours, I had a vision and I saw Jesus get back up on the cross and He said to me, "I would do this again and again for you, but once was enough." I then sensed the Father come into the room. I was scared and I said to Jesus, "Is He mad at me?" Jesus didn't answer, but instead He disappeared behind this presence of the Father that had come into the room. Then the Father said to me, "No, I'm not mad at you Heather I just want to hold you." He didn't even mention what I had done wrong because Jesus had wiped that away through forgiveness.

The Father then went on and asked if I would do certain things for Him in my life. He spoke to me of His destiny for me.

That night I got my first understanding of forgiveness and the extreme and extravagant love and generosity of the Father, of what He wants to give us in our weakest moments.

Despite that encounter, the journey for me to get free of all the rejection, condemnation, blame, fear and guilt, took years, because it was so deep in me and in my thought patterns. God led me bit by bit, year by year, to deal with layer upon layer of it, so that I have come into ever increasing freedom.

I can now come confidently to Him without flinching. Confident in His goodness that He wants to give me a fish and not a snake, as the Bible says.

I'm confident that He values me and my heart and desires and I know absolutely that He is trustworthy. Jesus is so gentle and humble. In our state of fear He comes to show us His hands with holes in, to show us it's safe.

That road of forgiveness that I'm talking about has two lanes to it though. The other lane I have travelled on has been where I have had to learn how to forgive others.

To not forgive is to choose to live in torment. To forgive others that have done wrong to us and hurt us, is to say there has to be justice for what you have done wrong, but the justice that I choose is that Jesus took your punishment for you, so there doesn't need to be any more justice than that. I cancel all the debts you owe me, because I am also a sinner and a prisoner who has also undeservedly been set free. I don't want you to live with any consequences for what you have done in this life or in eternity. I want to be extravagant like my Father and give you the most expensive gift I can give you. That is to forgive everything you've done and from that place allow Father to restore what has been broken and to reconcile what has been separated."