Forgiveness & Healing

Today we celebrated communion with our church family. It was one of those beautiful services that far exceeded its planning. During the passing of the bread, we were instructed to exchange our element with someone else as a way of saying that I am praising God to be in relationship with you. My dear deacon friend and I about bumped into each other as we turned to head down the aisle to find someone to exchange our bread with. He then extended his bread to me and embraced me in a bear hug. I don't ever recall sensing such a deep emotion of brotherly agape love as I did this morning. As we then took the bread together I was keenly aware that my brother & I were only in relationship because of Jesus Christ's death for us. Deep gratitude. When it came time for the cup we were instructed to go to someone who we had offended and to exchange our cups and seek forgiveness. I have to stop here & confess that I had really let both of my older sons have it earlier that morning and we were NOT in fellowship. I was right but I was wrong too. I immediately found my son Zack, exchanged cups and hugged his neck and wept. I told him that I loved him through my tears. I then headed to the balcony where Paul Jr. was manning the sound system. There was a crowd of people in that narrow side aisle. When I finally navigated the sea of folks without spilling my cup I looked up to see my boy coming to me! He made his way down the stairs to make things right with his dad. The tears just kept on falling as forgiveness was exchanged and relationships mended. The amazing thing is that this was taking place all over the sanctuary! We wrapped it up by singing, "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God..." Because of Jesus Christ's atoning death, the Church of the Wildwood experienced first hand forgiveness and healing. I've never been so thankful.