Bible Text: Matthew 11:28 | Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | About the time she entered college, Pamela’s relationship with her mom started to become strained, and from that point on things only grew worse. She remembers, “We just kept trying to be close, only to hurt each other again and again.”[i] Both mother and daughter genuinely wanted to restore the broken relationship. So they decided to take a car trip together to see if they could patch things up.

The tension was pretty bad at first, but while they were having a bite to eat in a restaurant Pamela finally broke the ice and poured out her heart about the things for which she needed forgiveness. To her surprise, her mother responded, “Sweetheart, I forgave you for all of those things years ago. You just didn’t take them off of your hook and put them on God’s.”[ii]

I love that word picture–taking your sins off of your hook and putting them on God’s! Sometimes we asked God to forgive us for our failures, but then we continue to carry guilt for them. Maybe it’s self-punishment we think we deserve. But God never intended it that way. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He meant for you to take the load off your hook and put it on His.

When I was a kid, I remember a wall plaque that said, “Let go and let God.” Could this be the day that you would do just that? Accept God’s forgiveness—let go of your failure and let God take care of it? Take your load off of your hook and put it on God’s?

At lunch that day Pam’s mom also admitted she had done things for which she needed forgiveness. Actually, Pam had long before forgiven her but had never told her mom. When she did, all the years of trying to figure out why they couldn’t get along melted away, and their relationship was healed.

 

 

[i] Pamela Sonnenmoser, “Road Trip to Forgiveness,” The Gift of Letting Go (Colorado Springs, CO: Honor Books, 2005), 203.

[ii] Ibid., 205.