DR. FRENCH O'SHIELDS Would you consider one single thing you can do if it would improve your health, your mental/emotional well-being, your marriage, your work and all of your interpersonal relationships?

Of course, you would.

Then here is good news!

In my 80 years I have met lots of people. It was my responsibility, as a pastor, to become involved in many lives in very personal ways. I have yet to meet a person who did not desire the best life possible.

Most tried hard to obtain it with great effort and high expectations. Some achieved a measure of success. Others failed because they were trying all the wrong ways. For most, myself included, it is a long journey of trial and error, seeking to discover what really makes life the best it can be.

From my personal experience, and confirmed by the experiences of others, I have concluded there is one single thing one can do to greatly improve the quality of one’s life.

IT IS FORGIVENESS: forgiving others and being forgiven by others.

I heard a prominent New York psychiatrist tell a group of pastors, “If I were a preacher, I would preach every Sunday on the same subject: FORGIVENESS. Forgiveness is the single greatest determiner of the quality of one’s life than any one thing I know.”

He was not a preacher or known as a man of faith. But he had spent his life seeking to help mend broken, hurting, defeated lives and help them know and experience the incredible healing power of forgiveness.

Greg Anderson learned that cancer could likely take his life in 30 days. Pastor David Jeremiah tells the rest of the story in his book TURNING POINTS.

“Anderson, desperate for healing, decided to forgive everyone against whom he held a grudge, including a man with whom he had developed a feud three months earlier. Anderson sought the man out, asked for and received the man’s forgiveness. Years later, as a wellness crusader, he counts this act of forgiveness as the turning point in his healing.”

Confirmation of the healing power of forgiveness comes from many sources. Medical providers agree bitterness and unforgiveness can lead to illness. Pastors witness broken lives made whole by the power of forgiveness. Mental therapists see the results of unforgiveness in emotional and mental problems. Marriage counselors observe the healing effect of forgiveness in a marriage that appeared to be dead. Men and women in prison, who believed life no longer held anything for them, experience marvelous change in their total wellbeing upon experiencing forgiveness.

Extending and receiving forgiveness is truly singular in its abilities, but please note I did not suggest it is simple or easy. To seek out one you have hurt and say: “I was wrong. Will you please forgive me?” is not easy. It may be one of the most difficult things you ever have to do. So is waiting for the other person’s answer to our question.

In spite of the difficulty, it is essential to life at its best. Forgiveness is not only healing to the physical body, but also flushes all the garbage out of our soul (thoughts, emotions, and actions), cleans, and makes us whole.

To say forgiveness is difficult is an understatement. Fact is, in human strength alone, genuine forgiveness is practically impossible. Having a forgiving spirit is made possible only by seeking, asking for, and experiencing God’s forgiveness, an experience readily available to each of us through His Son, Jesus.

FORGIVE TO LIVE, AND LIVE TO FORGIVE!

It has worked for others, and it will for you.

(Dr. French O’Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)