Choosing the life of forgiveness...

I am a huge supporter of the organization TWLOHA: To Write Love on Her Arms.  It is a non-profit organization "dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery."  I visit the site often, look through the store and upcoming events.  Most of all, I read the BLOG.  The blog of TWLOHA is filled with stories of triumphs, failures, prayers, poems, and personal stories.  God has been really dealing with me about the ministries that I lead and my own personal life leaving a legacy that points back to God's glory.  God has been really trying to tell me to trade in what is not of God (hate, injustice, bitterness, anger, indifference...) for what is of God (love, fairness, encouragement, forgiveness...).  Emmi Scott's story sheds light onto this thought:


I was born into a legacy of bitterness.

One side of my family consists of a long line of women whose lives haven’t turned out quite as they had imagined. They might not say it outright, but they are angry, and they have been angry for a long time. They have been left by more men than they can count; fathers, husbands, and lovers have walked out of their lives without looking back, but not before doing some deep damage. They can’t seem to forget, and those memories have decayed into a sense of bitterness, which makes itself known through criticism, gossip, and broken relationships. 

It’s exactly the kind of legacy no one wants to inherit.

I wondered for a long time if this legacy was mine to inherit too, just like the women before me had inherited it from their mothers and grandmothers. Never mind that I have an amazing father who chose to stay and to fight for me through the most difficult years of my life. Never mind that I am not prone to heartbreak. When a trait runs that strongly in your genes, it’s hard not to wonder if you will have it too, like blue eyes or a long nose. It begins to seem inevitable.

But then, that thing happened, the thing that threatened to give me my own list of “if only’s,” the event that threatened to toss me into a pit of bitterness without a means to climb back out. And in the brokenness, anger, and heartache that followed, I somehow decided that I didn’t want any part in this legacy of bitterness. 

I chose to disinherit myself. 

I chose to forgive.

Putting this decision into action hasn’t been the simplest thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes when your heart is smashed into a million pieces, you have to dig pretty deep to collect all of them again, and along the way, anger and bitterness and resentment rear their ugly heads and try to convince you that it will be easier to just give in to them. 

And sometimes, that’s a pretty tempting idea. 

Those are the days when you have to take a deep breath and choose, again, the path to forgiveness. And if that’s not enough, those are the days when you find someone who will help you want forgiveness, and you sit with them and cry about how unfair it all is until you settle down and realize that what you’re doing feels terrible and the forgiveness thing is just a better idea anyway. 

And after enough days, and maybe months, of deciding again and again to forgive, it suddenly becomes easy. And you’re finally not angry any longer.

Here’s the thing: harboring bitterness against someone else ultimately doesn’t affect them very much. But it could destroy you. That bitterness will seep into your thoughts, words, and actions, and it will affect your relationships with the people you love. So, forgive—if not for them, then for you. 

In the end, no matter how your plans turn out, no matter how others treat you, you get to choose what your life looks like. I’m choosing fullness, joy, and forgiveness. 

It’s a legacy that I hope will live on for many, many years.




Are you in the midst of anger, bitterness, and fear??  Trade it in for the things that God is calling you to do!  Like Emmi said, it will not be easy...but you have the choice to choose what your life looks like and the legacy your life will leave behind.


Until Next Time....

I missed this....

I'm wondering why I decided to blog so long ago.  Was it to boast me or was it to boast about Jesus?  Was it to help people or help myself?  Was it to cause controversy or help bring hope/healing?


Could it be all of the above?  NO!  Well, all of the above minus boasting me!  I am nothing to boast about.  I do not like attention.  I enjoy people saying great things about me, it helps more than people think.  However, without a doubt, my finger points up because without God I AM NOTHING!  Anything I do in this life is because of my LOVE...love for God, love for God's people, and love for God's GREAT work that God continues to do.  If I did not have this love, I would only be a math teacher probably about to punch a high school kid in the face because they complained math sucks (and it most certainly does not, at least not when I teach it).


Honestly, I started blogging because it was the thing to do when I hit college.  But, I suppose I started blogging to see if this was actually what God wanted me to do.  Did God REALLY want me to be a youth minister??  REALLY GOD?  REALLY?


I continue to ask this to keep myself humble, because every time God reminds me, "David, (or Gaddy as you like to be called), did you really think you alone were going to be a minister??  You are never alone!!  I AM with you.  Not only as God, but I also live in you.  Not only do I live in you, but I also live in the people you will come across (friends, family, wife, teens, their parents).  I am not dead, I am alive, and you are NEVER alone."


I am reminded of this today.  After the deadly final two weeks of school have come and gone (for which took much of my energy away), I am now knee deep in ministry at my current church.  I love this place, love the people, LOVE THE TEENS!  However, I realize too often I try to go it alone.  This is not fair to me and not fair to those people who have amazing talents with teens and children.  As I look back though, I realize that never once did I walk alone...God and Gods peeps have been there all along.


With this in mind, this is my blog.  I will speak my mind carefully.  This will be my therapy and the outflow of what God has on my heart.  On my heart right now, this song "Never Once".  Hear the song, feel the lyrics, I realize we are a people who are not abandoned, but loved by an overwhelmingly loving God!


Until Next Time....